


A Long Hot Summer

by annas



Series: Bobby and John Fics (I'll come up with a better title). [3]
Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Bisexual Michelle Jones, Bisexual Peter Parker, Bobby Drake is a gay icon, Bobby is lonely and needs a friend, Closetted Character, Coming Out, F/M, Gay Panic, Identity Reveal, Inspired by both the X-Men Movies and Comics, John turns up a few chapters in, M/M, Mutant Politics, Not Canon Compliant - X-Men, Past Kitty/Bobby, Past Rogue/Bobby, Peter and MJ are two bisexuals in a relationship convince me otherwise, Peter joins the X-Men, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Secret Identity, kinda slow burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:14:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24708937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annas/pseuds/annas
Summary: Still reeling from having his identity exposed by Mysterio, Peter struggles to navigate a world in which he is no longer anonymous and his life, as Peter Parker, will never be the same. Meanwhile, with the majority of his friends now five years older with him, Bobby struggles in being honest about his sexuality and his identity as a mutant. When a chance encounter brings Spider-Man to the Xavier Institute, Peter strikes up a friendship with Bobby and the residents of the Xavier Institute, as a mysterious group threatens to turn the whole world against mutants for good.Or, the Spider-Man/X-Men Crossover of my dreams, in which Bobby and Peter learn about the importance of being honest in who they really are. POV Alternating between Peter and Bobby.
Relationships: Bobby Drake/Kitty Pryde, Bobby Drake/Rogue, John Allerdyce/Bobby Drake, Kitty Pryde/Piotr Rasputin, Michelle Jones/Peter Parker
Series: Bobby and John Fics (I'll come up with a better title). [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2020682
Comments: 6
Kudos: 40





	1. Peter

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! 
> 
> This fic takes place after the events of Spider-Man: Far from Home and is inspired by both the X-Men Movies and the comics. I've based Bobby a lot more off of his character in the comics because let's face it, they did his character dirty. 
> 
> Like Peter, Bobby blips as a result of Thanos, whilst the majority of the X-Men remain. Peter and Bobby are both the same age in this and are both about to go into their Senior Year of High School.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter considers if going back to Midtown for his senior year is a good idea and get's himself involved in a sticky situation.

Whilst the summer following Midtown High’s eventful trip to Europe had been the hottest New York City had experienced in over twenty years, as Peter lay on the rooftop of MJ’s apartment building, sweat beading on his forehead, it wasn’t the heat that was bothering him.

Lolling her head back against his shoulder, so that her dark skin gleamed in the sunlight, MJ grunted, touching her wrist to her forehead. She wore her hair in a tight bun, with only a few loose curls falling down her forehead and pair of retro sunglasses on her head, that made her appear even more impossibly cool.

“You know." She mused, "I heard there’s a store a couple of blocks from here that lets you stand in their walk-in freezer for fifteen dollars.” That really did sound incredible. The air was so hot and thick that you could see it rippling as it met the roof top. As she spoke, she continued to work on the drawing in front of her, biting her lip occasionally with concentration. Peter couldn't believe how lucky he was just to be able to sit beside MJ, admiring her as she worked. He probably should be sitting in some top secret maximum security prison on a remote island in the middle of the Pacific ocean, right now. 

“Nope. That’s an urban legend. Trust me, I’ve tried.” Ned replied, the memory of disappointment taking over his face momentarily. He was sitting across the roof from them, his face cast in shadow by his sunhat, nose deep in a comic book. Snorting, MJ raised an eyebrow at him, before returning to her sketching.

She was currently trying to decide on a design for her Mutant Rights poster, but was already on her seventh draft, as was evident in the array of discarded papers circling around her. Dropping her pencil abruptly, she shuffled back from where she was sitting, face still. Then, she glanced at Peter.

“Which one?” She asked, pulling two of them towards him and placing her chin in her hand. “I’m gonna print them with glow in the dark ink. I’m not one hundred per cent happy with them though.”

As she spoke, the passion in her voice sent warmth through him to match the sun on his skin. As if she wasn't already ridiculously smart and funny, MJ was also relentlessly selfless in doing what was right.

There'd been a spree of attacks against mutants in the city recently, a couple of which Peter had thankfully been able to thwart, but that wasn't nearly enough to stop what was happening. From what Peter understood, a lot of what had happened as a result of Thanos had been wrongly blamed on mutants and all the progress that had been made in the last decade had been shattered overnight. 

“They’re both amazing”, He smiled, taking a proper look at both of them and tracing the intricate linework his index finger “But…this one.”

Humming, she looked at him blankly for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah, I would have chosen that one anyway." 

“Sure”, He grinned, staring at her for just too long that she noticed the buzz of anxiety that twisted his smile. Looking away from her abruptly, he chewed his lip. He didn't want to ruin the time they had together, moaning about being unmasked. 

Spinning round so that their knees were touching before he'd even done so much as taking a breath, she frowned at him. “Something’s bothering you. What is it?”

No matter how much he tried to put on a brave face, MJ hadn't got any less observant. The only difference now was that rather than trying to solve the puzzle of whether Peter was Spider-Man, she was trying to solve the puzzle that was Peter himself. Breathing heavily, he put his chin in his hand, not even sure where to begin.

During the month and a half since Mysterio had posthumously revealed his identity to the world, Peter’s ordinary life had literally been chewed up and spat back out again. Immediately after, he’d had to go into hiding in one of Mr Starks properties over the Canadian border, whilst they assessed the situation. SHIELD had done a pretty good job at proving the footage had been doctored and had thankfully denied that Spider-Man’s real identity was Peter Parker. Regardless, however, the damage the video had done was completely irreversible. Because for every person who didn’t believe he was Spider-Man and that he wasn’t an egotistical maniac, it seemed there was an equal amount who did.

He’d been ripped from the shelter of anonymity and launched into the spotlight overnight. He was frequently brought up in news broadcasts and couldn’t go out in the street without at least one person giving him a bewildered look - and that was if he was lucky. He’d been frequently followed, yelled at, had insults hurled at him across the street. But that wasn’t even the worst part. The worst part was that occasionally, someone would approach his Aunt in the market, or the street and demand to know if her nephew was really Spider-Man.

He knew he was lucky, really. No one had conclusively proved he was Spider-Man, not yet anyway. Sure he’d had to move across Queens when journalists had started to get a hold of their address. But he still got to see MJ and Ned and he hadn’t been forced to flee the city. Yet, it was the future that scared him now. Just waiting to see if someone proved he was Spider-Man. Just waiting for someone to take MJ, or Ned, or May hostage. Or even, just waiting for school to start back up again in a months time.

Sighing, Peter relented, his tight shoulders dropping with defeat. “May got a call off the school principal today, they want to talk to me about... _arrangements_ for next year.”

Ripping his head from his comic and throwing it to the floor, Ned furrowed his brow. 

“What do _arrangements_ mean...wait, they’re not kicking you out around you, are they?" Ned exclaimed, his mouth falling wide open. 

Peter really fucking hoped not. 

Sensing the onset of immediate panic in Peter, MJ glared at Ned. “Don't be stupid! They’re not kicking him out. They’re probably just trying to make sure you don’t spend the entire school year getting harassed.” She stated confidently, only realising the mistake she'd made when she saw Peter grimace, “Not that you're going to get harassed! They’re just being extra prepared.”

Giving Ned and MJ a weak smile, Peter climbed to his feet and move to the edge of the rooftop to look over the city. Nowadays, he couldn't relax for long. He felt constantly compelled to act as if he was compelled by some motor, but to do what, he wasn't quite sure. This rooftop had been their solace for the last month or so; there was a park a couple of streets away so nobody really bothered coming up here, giving them their own private hideout, away from the prying eyes of the city. He knew Ned and MJ were trying to help, but there was only so much they could do to alleviate his stress. They'd barely been apart since being reunited, much to his delight. But Peter could help but think they too were latching on to each moment they had together, waiting for that inevitable day that Peter would have to leave them for good. 

Humming, Peter gritted his teeth in preparation to drop the bombshell. “I just…is it even a good idea for me to go back anymore?”

Mouth agape Ned folded his arm, looking down at Peter more seriously than he’d ever done before. “You’re not dropping out. It's our Senior year! We're not doing it without you.”

“He’s right.” MJ agreed, trying to hide the slight crack in her voice, “You’ve done nothing wrong. Besides, this is exactly what Mysterio wanted, to fuck with your life and you're still letting him, even now he's dead!”

“Yeah, but, think of all the times you guys have been in danger….Washington…Europe and that was when nobody knew who Spider-Man was. So what if I’m just putting everyone I’m around in ten times more danger now?”

“But that’s hypothetical, Peter. You can’t know anything that’s going to happen. It’s dumb.”

She was right and did Peter know he was driving himself insane with all this speculation. When he weighed preparing for the worst against walking blindly into school as if nothing had happened, only for something awful to occur, neither option was desirable.

Peter turned around to face them with a reassuring smile, in a vain attempt to convince his friends and himself that everything was going to be just fine. “You’re right I’m probably just overthinking it-“

He didn’t get the chance, however, to continue his line of thought, before the hairs of his arms pricked up and a cold shiver danced along his spine.

“Something’s happening.” He mumbled, moving along the rim of the rooftop, to the North corner.

On queue, Ned and MJ jolted, as a loud boom shattered through the air, which was accompanied by a great puff of smoke emerging from the alleyway across the street. Right on time, he thought. There was nothing that stopped him from overthinking more than pure adrenaline.

“Shit.” MJ exclaimed, jumping up to join his side. “Gas explosion?”

“No, I don’t think so...Guess we'll find out." He responded quickly, grabbing his backpack from the cool concrete. "I'll catch you guys later! Bye, Ned!" 

Running over to MJ, Peter pressed a soft kiss to her cheek and smiled at her sheepishly. “I’ll call you later, I promise. Do you still wanna put up those flyers tomorrow?”

He genuinely felt guilty about leaving. With their future dangling by a web, Peter always feared that each time they’d all get to hang out like this would be the last. But just because Mysterio had exposed his identity, that didn't mean he wasn't responsible to help people where he could. 

Wiping her cheek with mock disgust, MJ smirked at him, "Gross. But yeah sure, don't do anything dumb."

-

Once he had carefully changed and stashed his backpack, he looped rapidly around the block, in order to avoid anyone noticing where he’d come from. It was a technique he’d had to adopt more rigidly now, looping in irrational patterns and shooting webs in random directions, to lessen the chance of anyone tracking him back to where he’d come from. As he swung, his gut churned, his conversation with Ned and MJ still ringing in his head. 

Before he had even landed on the roof of the building that bordered the alleyway, he was taken aback by the intense heat of the flames searing below. His suit was already acclimatising, pressing waves of cool air into his skin. Looking down over the alleyway, he scanned the passage for any signs of life. It was almost completely ablaze, flames licking the buildings that bordered the cutting.

“Karen, I need that fire out.” He instructed, pointing his wrist through the dense black smoke and he watched as the flames were choked out by the webs that landed upon them. Once he was satisfied that the majority of the flames were out, he carefully dropped down into the alleyway. Through the blackened air, he could make out the figure of a person, edging backwards to the point at which the lane diverged into two. They were almost completely silent, all Peter was aware of was their steady heartbeat, which he could just about hear through the crackling of dying flames.

“Hey Buddy, are you okay?” He yelled, moving towards the body carefully. As he walked closer towards him and the smoke further depleted, he was able to make out the face of a teenager,about the same height as him, his hair hanging over his face so that it prevented Peter getting a proper look at him.

To Peter’s surprise, the boy spat back at him angrily, “Stay out of this, asshole, this doesn’t concern you”. It wasn’t so much that Peter wasn’t used to be called an asshole, rather, he was more than accustomed to it, but rather, usually when he rescued people from fires they were happy to see him. Peter was starting to feel something was off about the scene. This guy must have been surrounded by fire only seconds ago, yet he didn’t seem the slightest bit bothered, not even letting out as much as a single cough. Rather, he stared at Peter was considerable anger, as if he was the problem here.

“Sorry, staying out of things isn’t really my deal.” He replied, eyes darting around the alleyway. "Are you hurt? It was at that moment that Peter came to realise two things. The first was that there were more than just the two of them in the alleyway. At the other end of the alleyway that opened up onto the street, he could feel five different figures were moving towards them through the smoke, advancing with calculated ease. The second; that something bad was about to happen.

“Get down!” He yelled as a gunshot cracked through the air. Darting past the bullet with ease, he launched both of his web-shooters towards the smoke and ripped two of the figures off their feet and into the clean air. Webbing the two men efficiently against the exposed brick wall, he glanced back to look for the teenage, only to find the space where he’d been empty. Where on earth had he vanished to?

He didn’t have time to consider, however, as another man dived out of the shadows, hurling his fist towards Peter. Catching his fist and popping it with a twist, he webbed him too to the ground, earning a startled cry from his attacker. Despite all wearing what looked like military gear, they didn’t appear to be well trained in combat and Peter had no difficulty in apprehending them.

As the fourth figure made his way towards Peter, he placed his hands on his waist, no longer threatened. “Look, I already took three of your friends down, stop now and it’ll probably hurt less.’

The man, however, didn’t appear to be stopping. Gun aimed square at Peter, the man fired and Peter watched as the bullet barrelled towards him. Dodging it effortlessly, Peter hung off the wall,now becoming rather impatient by the whole affair. What were these guys deal? What Peter was not prepared for, however, was for the bullet the man had fired to stop just short of the back wall and hold still, momentarily as if being levitated in the air.

“What the-“

Peter gasped, as the bullet paused then launched back towards him and smacked straight into the side of his neck. Yelling in pain, he grabbed his neck, waiting for the blood to gush from his open skin. At the same time, he lost his grip on the brick, tumbling back onto his feet awkwardly and feeling his ankle jolt unnaturally at the pressure. This was wrong, something was very wrong here…

Stumbling back, he desperately glanced around to locate his attackers. They’d actually shot him, mother-.

By the time he’d registered where they were, however, he was seconds too late. In fact, it took only a second in from being hit in the head, for Peter to be knocked out cold.


	2. Bobby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bobby has a meeting with the Professor and a training session goes wrong.

Of all the problems that Bobby’s genetics had caused him, on this baking hot day in Westchester County, one particular thing was causing him a significant issue.

You see, Bobby didn’t sweat. And that wasn’t an expression of his nerve or resilience. In hot temperatures, his unique physiology allowed him to lower his core temperature, as opposed to cooling itself down through perspiration. Whilst, on the surface, this appeared to be an enviable advantage however, the reality of this particular mutation was far less desirable. Using your powers required significant mental concentration or lack of. So, in order to keep his body cool, because he couldn’t sweat Bobby was forced to exercise constant control over his body temperature, at every waking minute of the day.

Sure, it had been an advantage when he was awkward and prepubescent, that he hadn’t had to go through that particularly embarrassing physical change. What it did mean, however, was that whenever the temperature went above 100 degrees, which in the month of August, was pretty much every freaking day, he had to constantly regulate his temperature, meaning he was constantly, fucking, exhausted.

Leaning against the panelled wall outside the Professor’s office, Bobby fanned himself vigorously with his T-Shirt. The heat wasn’t a problem so much at night; whenever he was alone in his room in fact, he would allow himself to lose control a little so that the entire room was cooled down to the crisp freshness of a winters day. As soon as he left that dorm room every morning, however, his sacred place, it was another day of cursing his stupid genetics, as to avoid giving everyone in a five-metre vicinity of him frostbite.

He’d been dreading this conversation with the Professor for weeks. In fact, he’d been actively avoiding it. The second the Professor would dismiss them from class, he’d be halfway out of the door and he spent the entire time staring at the air directly next to his teacher, so as to avoid those all-seeing eyes. When Scott had approached him that morning, however, as he shovelled pancakes into his face at breakfast, with an apologetic look on his face that let Bobby know that he wasn’t going to like what Scott had to say, he’d known the game was up.

So, long story short; Bobby didn’t sweat, but if he could he would definitely be doing so now.

The Professor hadn’t left him long melting in the corridor before the door to his office clicked open and Dr Grey stepped out into the corridor. Dressed in a crisp white lab coat, he hair tied back carefully, she gave Bobby a bright smile, her eyes betraying her tiredness. His interest was immediately aroused. Storm and Summers had been sent out on a mission yesterday, the details of which were being closely guarded. From Bobby’s long tenure at the institute, however, he could deduce that they’d brought somebody back with them, who Jean was now tending to.Wow, he was smarter than people gave him credit for.

“Hi, Bobby”. She grinned, “Heat bothering you?”

Bobby liked Dr Grey a lot. She was kind and caring in a way that wasn’t patronising and demeaning, a balance some of the others hadn’t quite got the knack of.

Bobby didn’t get the chance to answer though, for Scott had now emerged at the door behind her, giving Bobby that same apologetic look he’d given him at breakfast. He knew exactly why Scott was there. For a significant portion of his life, Scott was the closest thing he’d had to an older brother and he’d relied on him heavily when he’d first come to the institute at the mere age of 10. Smart move, Xavier.

“Hey, Bobby. Do you wanna come in?”

Jean flashed him a reassuring smile and he treaded slowly into the office as if his shoes were weighted to the floor. The glass patio doors in the Professor’s office were thrown open, curtains wafting in the light breeze, but it didn’t make the room any cooler. Instead, the air was still sticky and hot.

Bobby hadn’t been in the Professor’s office for almost a year, but he knew the drill. Plopping into the seat opposite the Professor, he readied himself for the psychoanalysis to come.

“Good Morning Robert, how are you doing today?”

Forcing himself not to cringe at the use of his full name, Bobby resigned to his fate and made eye contact with the Professor. He respected the Professor more than he could ever express; Bobby had no idea where he’d be without Xavier and the institute, but that didn’t make this type of meeting any easier.

“Well, you know it’s hot…” He replied lamely, brain cells clearly having melted like the ice cream he’d accidentally left out of the freezer last night. Yes, he could freeze it again, but it just didn’t taste the same after you froze it again. Ice-Cream was his area of expertise.

Scott chuckled and Bobby gave him a quick narrow side-eye, which Scott definitely noticed.

“It’s not funny, how can we be the next stage in human evolution if I can’t even keep my body cool without getting tired?” He mused, “It’s literally the one thing I’m supposed to be good at.”

“It is peculiar”,the Professor returned sympathetically, choosing not to expand any more on the topic. It wasn’t the first time he’d moaned to the Professor about this particular issue. One summer, around his 13th Birthday, he’d passed out from the heat in the middle of English class and had to be carried, damsel style out of the room by Scott, much to the amusement of his classmates.

The Professor had speculated that this ‘problem’ with his mutation, may be solved by the development of a secondary mutation, which tended to manifest a few years after the first emergence of mutant powers. Bobby wasn’t sure exactly what a secondary mutation entailed, but he certainly didn’t want one, and thankfully, at the age of 17, it didn’t appear he was getting one.

“I understand you’re going to visit your parents next weekend?”Bobby might be able to distract everyone else with his incessant chatter, but not the Professor, straight to the point.

“Yeah, I am,” Bobby said, plainly. He imagined this conversation was as painful for the Professor as it was for Bobby. He was atrociously bad at discussing his feelings, in fact, he couldn’t think of anything worse.

“And how do you feel about that?” Professor Xavier enquired. The Professor could literally look inside of his head. He knew exactly how Bobby was feeling, but that wasn’t good enough, according to the adults. It was important to vocalise and process your emotions, especially for mutants, to stop their feelings compromising the control of their abilities. Bobby didn’t necessarily agree with that, however. If you didn’t think about it, was it even a problem?

“Mmm…fine.” He lied, giving the Professor a flat smile. Raising an eyebrow, the Professor looked to Scott, then back at Bobby again. He’d say Scott was only slightly less of a robot than Bobby was when it came to his feelings, so if the Professor was using Scott to get Bobby to try talk about his feelings, he must be very concerned.

“Bobby”, Scott intervened, predictably, “It’s important to talk about these things. I promise you’re going to feel a lot worse if you don’t get this stuff out in the open.”

He seemed to speak from experience, from the intensity of the tone that he had adopted.

Swallowing, he answered, “It’s not a big deal. I can’t be the only one whose parent’s don’t know they’re a mutant.”

“This isn’t about anyone else Robert, this about your situation and how you choose to manage it.”

He had to admit to himself, his ‘situation’ wasn’t like everyone else's, in fact, it was pretty fucking tragic. When Xavier had come to visit him on that fateful Sunday morning in June, when 10-year-old Bobby had woken up to find the entirety of his room covered in frost, he’d done Bobby the justice of introducing the institute as a Prep School to his parents, for ‘gifted’ children. He’d had no idea how the Professor had achieved this, besides the obvious, Bobby was painfully average in schooling and showed no actual talent which mandated a scholarship to an exclusive private school. But in keeping Bobby’s mutation a secret from his family, he’d given the Bobby the privilege of not having to choose between controlling his abilities and his life as their son.

It had taken years for Bobby to finally build up the courage to tell his parents he was a mutant, but when he’d turned 17, he had decided the time was right. The sun actually seemed to be shining on mutants, there were fewer incidents on the news, fewer riots and a sympathetic government. So he’d packed up his bags and visited them in Boston, ready to finally be honest about who he was. Well, part of who he was.

And then the blip had happened. And he’d returned, five years later, in the exact spot he’d been sitting about to come out to his parents. And the entire world had changed; everybody hated mutants again. They blamed them for what had happened with Thanos.

And Bobby’s parents, having waited five years for their son to return, had got to their kid back. They’d waited for five, whole years, waiting for their child to come back to them; who’d disappeared in front of their eyes. Bobby just couldn’t do it to them. He couldn’t break their hearts like that; he couldn’t reveal to them that version of the son they’d been waiting for, didn’t even exist. So he’d decided, in his parent's interest, to hold off telling his parents he was a mutant, maybe even forever.

Finally, after a few moments of staring down at his feet, he breathed deeply, not surprised to see it expelled as a cloud of cold air in front of him.

“I’m not going to tell them.” He didn’t have to explain himself. Maybe it made him a coward, to those mutants who didn’t have a choice of coming out as a mutant, who couldn’t hide their mutations.

“It is completely up to you what you decide, Robert and we can’t make that decision for you. But what we are concerned about, is that you might be struggling with that decision more than you’re letting on.”

He hated the idea that he’d been at the centre of some pitiful conversation. He wasn’t a child, he knew how to deal with these problems on his own.

“It’s fine, really. It’s the best decision for everyone.” He insisted, convincing exactly zero people in the room. Looking at Bobby was an expression that clearly indicated he wasn’t finished, the Professor, tilted his head at Bobby slightly.

'And how about your control?”

Bobby knew he should have expected this. It wasn’t as if the incidents had been particularly low key. But that didn’t stop him from feeling as if his heartbeat was in his throat.

“What about it?” He asked, maintaining his poker face.

“Come on, Bobby.” Scott scoffed, clearly losing his patience over Bobby’s refusal to contribute anything remotely meaningful to the discussion. “You’re not fooling anyone here but yourself.”

Ouch. Admittedly, yes, his control over his abilities had been a little off recently. But it was nothing major, nothing that demanded this level attention. He was still able to control his abilities in training. He was supposed to be the overdramatic one.

“I mean, it’s a little off, but it’s just the hot weather.” He said dismissively, leaning back in his chair and scowling at Scott for a split second.

“Robert, if this was any other of my students, it would most likely be a cause for concern. But you’ve had almost perfect control for years, is there anything that could be causing this? The Professor asked. It was an annoyingly good question and Bobby didn’t miss the compliment.

The first time he’d lost control, badly enough for anybody to notice, had been around three weeks ago. He’d been sitting on the window ledge, scanning through college prospectuses in his dorm room, when he’d lost his balance. When he’d placed his hand on the window pane, however, to steady himself, out of nowhere, he’d involuntarily frozen the glass, causing the entire thing to shatter. Needless to say, that had been a pretty difficult one to explain and it hadn’t been long before rumours had begun to spread about why Bobby had decided to smash his window.

The time after that had been the week after. He’d been midway through dinner, when he’d been asked to pass the water jug, only to find that by the time it had reached Piotr’s outstretched metal hand, he’d frozen it solid. That had been more embarrassing than anything.

But the most serious and significant of his recent misadventures had been just two evenings before and had involved, quite possibly, the worst possible person. He’d been pacing up and down the main hallway, trying to get enough signal to call his parents, to no avail, when he’d bumped into Kitty, who’d offered him her mobile. When he’d finished being berated by his mother and wandered off to find her in the sitting room, he’d had to return her brand new phone in a block of ice. The sight of Kitty’s face falling to one of hurt still hung fresh in Bobby’s mind.

“No, I don’t think so.” He replied honestly this time. There seemed to be no commonality between when these incidents occurred, besides taking place on exceptionally hot days. “Really, I feel fine, I don’t need anyone to worry about me.”

He hated the idea of people fussing over him. Of course, the blip had changed his world, but it had changed everyone else’s too. The universe had collapsed upon itself, only to be reassignment in a chaotic contortion five years later. So maybe to him, it was a tragedy to him that he couldn’t tell his parents he was a mutant and that his best friends were now five years older than him, but his circumstances certainly weren’t any more tragic than anybody else’s.

After an uncomfortable few moments of the Professor trying to ween a few more words out of him, he sighed, resigning to defeat.

“Okay, as long as you feel you feel confident you’ll be able to control your powers when you visit your parents, then that will be all.”

Not doubting in the slightest that he certainly wasn’t off the hook yet, Bobby smiled, seeking solace in the victory of the conversation finally being over. Deciding against small talk, he jumped to his feet and backed away towards the door.

“Thank you, Professor. I’m good, it’ll be fine I promise. Cya in class Scott!” He sang, choosing to avoid any further eye contact than was necessary.

As he breezed into the corridor, the flow of students now milling about signalling the end of First Period, Bobby breathed a sigh of relief. He’d successfully avoided being therapised too deeply by the Professor and being reprimanded for his power accidents. He’d consider that a roaring success. The former was of greater importance. He was fine for the Professor to think he was stressed out about going to see his mutant hating parents, rather than him digging into the matters that Bobby was desperate to keep private, at least for now.

Zipping through the crowds, he slid into the elevator that travelled down into the basement. He was actually pretty relieved to have training this morning; it would give him the chance to get rid of some of the nervous energy that was pulsing through his body and the bottom floor had spectacular air conditioning. Just before the doors closed, a hand slid through the gap and Scott’s broad shoulders slid in beside him.

“You know, if you keep refusing to speak to the Professor properly, he’s only going to make you have more meetings with him,” Scott said casually, arms folding across his chest as the elevator descended. Scott was a very rational man. It really was his worst quality.

Shrugging, he leaned his head against the wall, already feeling his temperature rising. “Why would he need to speak to me if there isn’t a problem?.”

They stared at each other briefly, before Scott rolled his eyes at Bobby. It certainly wasn’t the usual teacher-student relationship, but then again, this wasn’t a usual school.

“Anyway”, Bobby continued, smirking, “I have much more important things to be doing, like kicking your butt in training.”

Huffing, Scott faked annoyance, as a small smile slipped onto his face. “You mean attempting to undermine my authority whilst you show off?”.

So what if he liked to make the training sessions a little more light-hearted? There was no harm in cracking jokes in the face of simulated certain doom.Besides, he knew where the line was. He’d learned that in one of Logan’s training sessions, whilst he’d been dating Rogue.

“Well”, Scott carried on, “I’m sorry to disappoint you but I’m not taking you training today, duty calls.”

“Who is?”

“Kitty and Piotr.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

He’d rather go through that training session with Logan again. Up to this day, he’d been purposely kept out of classes with Kitty where it could be avoided, in an attempt to lessen the impact of your former classmates now being your teachers. Kitty, Rogue and Piotr had all remained on Earth when the blip had occurred and had remained at the institute during the five years to teach and make up for the staff losses.

“Can I not train later?” He begged, standing in front of the elevator door to prevent Scott from leaving.

Looking down at him sympathetically, Scott placed a hand on his shoulder. “Look, I know it isn’t ideal, but I have something important to attend to. And it had to happen eventually, you can’t just avoid Kitty forever.”

Actually, no, if Scott hadn’t bailed on training, he could have avoided her forever.

See, that was where the next tragedy of Bobby Drake tragic little existence came in. Kitty hadn’t just been his best friend when he’d blipped, she’d been his girlfriend. They'd started dating about six months after he’d broken up with Rogue, both of them tired of trying to maintain a relationship that clearly didn’t work. He’d liked Kitty a lot. She was a lot of fun and they had a similar sense of humour, so they’d just naturally been drawn together. So when he’d been returned after the blip, he’d been understandably unhappy to find his now ex-girlfriend had a new boyfriend in Piotr and was now five years his senior.

“Scott.” He whined, as Scott moved him aside with ease and walked in the opposite direction to the training room.

“Bobby”, Scott called over his shoulder. “If you want to talk about your issues with Kitty, then I can arrange a meeting with Professor. And it’s Mr Summers, thanks.”

Checkmate.

When he’d eventually made it into the training room, already late from his meeting with the Professor and changing into his suit, the rest of his class was already standing around waiting to start. As he made eye contact with Kitty, she smiled at him politely, immediately causing his stomach to lurch with guilt.

The awful thing was, he wasn’t avoiding Kitty because he didn’t want to be around her necessarily. In fact, he missed their friendship a lot, more than he would ever admit. It was more to do with the fact that she didn’t want to talk to him as her friend anymore, but as his teacher. It was like they spoke to each other through a wall of ice, neither of them capable of communicating in a way that didn’t irritate the other, him challenging her authority and her patronising him. And then, there was the other reason he didn’t want to want to get close to Kitty.

He knew that if he was to let Kitty in again, then he’d eventually have to be honest with her. Honest with Kitty, that he was one-hundred per cent and undeniably gay. He’d known for a long time now. Well of course, deep down he’d always known. But he’d yet to tell a soul. It wasn’t that he thought they’d treat him badly, or they wouldn’t accept it. Rather, it was the fact that he’d have to reveal to them that he wasn’t the person everyone had thought him to be for so long and that was an utterly terrifying thought.

The training session was a simple rescue mission; retrieving the injured teammate in a set period of time.

“We’ll run the simulation twice, so everyone gets a chance to do the rescuing. Bobby, you’ll be being rescued first.” As his classmate giggled, Bobby fought hard to mask his irritation. Of course, he was being rescued. Clearly, Kitty had no intention in leaving him be today. “Is that a problem?”

“Of course not, Professor.” He replied sarcastically, refusing to give her the satisfaction of annoying him. “Anything for the team.”

Once he’d climbed onto the raised platform at the far end of the danger room, the simulation began, the chrome walls disappearing in the place of a dystopian city, complete with burning ruins and plush fumes of smoke. No matter how many times they trained in here, he’d never stop being in awe of the mirage that was produced, frighteningly real in every way. As he lay on the platform today, however, waiting to be rescued, he was struggling to take the mission seriously.

Why did she have to make him the victim? He was doing everything he could to stop everyone at the institute thinking he was Kitty’s jealous ex-boyfriend, without outing himself and here she was, just trying to bait him. He despised being treat like a child, he was just as ready as any of his classmates, if not the readiest to become an X-Man. Yet Kitty insisted on treating him like she was ten years his senior, as opposed to five. Wishing he’d smuggled his headphones in, Bobby sat up and peered over the ruins. It had to have been at least fifteen minutes since to mission had begun. If this was actually real, he’d one hundred per cent be five foot under by now.

Tapping his comms, he tuned into to hear Kitty’s voice. “Good job, Amara! Not far now.”

“Can you guys get a move on?” Bobby barked into his earpiece, “I’m literally dead now.”

“Patience, Bobby,” Piotr commanded, with that soothing tone that made it impossible to hate him. It wasn’t so bad that Piotr was his teacher. He’d always one of the people Bobby had to go to for advice back in the day. He had a steady, reassuring quality, that made him the perfect teacher. Like Kitty, he didn’t dislike Piotr at all. He disliked the unfortunately awkward relations which tethered them together.

After another five minutes, Bobby decided he’d had enough. The nervous energy inside him was only increasing and they must only have a few minutes left of class. He had to get rid of it somehow. Hopping down from the platform, he wandered around the ruins, towards the sounds of banging and clashing that were radiating from a few feet away. Sure there were a couple of robots in between him and his classmates, but it was nothing they hadn’t tackled before. When he reached a tall mound of rubble, blocking the path to his teammates, Bobby grabbed onto a sharp rock sticking out of the pile and heaved himself up. He hadn’t swung his leg over, however, before he locked eyes with Kitty. Marching over to him with a look of frustration, she folded her arms at him and glared.

“Bobby, get back on the platform, you’re the victim, you’re not supposed to be conscious.” 

“Well, the victim has woken up and is going to get involved in the action.” He remarked, standoffishly.

“You’re not ruining the session because you’re not getting to play the hero.” Kitty growled, pointing backwards the platform, “I won’t ask you again.”

He considered the suggestion briefly. He wasn’t actively trying to disobey Kitty’s authority, rather, it was just incidental. “Fine, then don’t ask me again.”

Swinging his leg over, he climbed down the rubble with ease, dropping to the ground. From where he was stood, he could just about see the top of Amara’s head, as she danced out of the way of one of the metal Goliath’s.

“Bobby!” Kitty’s voice boomed, as she phased through the ruins to stand in front of him, “You’re done, go get changed, you’re not ruining this.”

Warmth rising in his cheeks, his face fell. “Are you kidding me, that’s not fair! You can’t just sideline for no reason.”

“If you’re not going to work with the team then you’re not training at all. And you certainly wouldn’t undermine Scott or Ororo like this. You’ve got no respect.”

“I’ve got no respect!” He cried in disbelief, “You didn’t even give me a chance!”

“Yet you’ve blown it already. You’re out!”

Huffing, Bobby tossed his coms to the ground, gentle enough not to damage it but dramatic enough to prove his point. “Whatever.”

Bobby marched towards where he knew the doorway was, ice forming and crunching below his boots as he moved. He’d said to Scott this was a dumb idea and now he felt, even more, wound up than he had been when they’re started.

“Bobby! Look-“

Holy Shit. Without his comms, he’d been a second too late in noticing Sam’s body propelling towards him. He didn’t get the chance to scream. With an almighty crash, Sam’s form barrelled into him and the pair soared across the room, coming to a halt as they smacked against the wall. As Sam crawled off him with a groan, Bobby grabbed his nose and yelled out in pain. Blood was already spilling from his nose and dripping through fingers, onto the danger room floor.

“Colossus, end the simulation!” He heard Kitty yell.

He probably should have stayed playing the victim.


	3. Peter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter wakes up at the institute and meets the X-Men.

Before Peter even opened his eyes, he was aware of three distinct facts regarding his current situation.

  1. This was not his bedroom. He knew this, since the bed he was laying on was wildly uncomfortable and the smell of the room was clinical, as if it had been freshly sanitised. 
  2. Something bad had just happened, but he wasn’t sure what. 
  3. His head really, really fucking hurt. 



Groaning, Peter brought his hand to his head drowsily. At the point where the pain radiated from, just to the right above his forehead, his hair was damp and he winced as he fingers brushed the skin.

“Be careful, don’t touch it”.

Fuck. At the sound of a completely unfamiliar voice, Peter’s body sprang to attention and before he’d even had chance to open his eyes, he found himself stuck to the ceiling. Eyes bursting open, he grimaced at the stark unnatural light that greeted him.

His mind still foggy and confused, Peter eyes darted around the room below him, attempting to process the massive amounts of information that was currently being fired at his brain. He had no idea where he was, he had no idea where he had got there and he certainly had no idea who the woman currently looking back at up at him was.

This was definitely some kind of private hospital. Below him, where he must have been lying, was a hospital stretcher, elevated a meter off of the group . Additionally, there was a vast array of advanced looking medical equipment scattered around the room; the kind of equipment that was so expensive he’d only seen it in the likes of the Avengers properties. There wasn’t a single window in sight, just four bright white walls, which probably indicated they were underground. The only way out of here appeared to be large a silver circular door on the far wall.

“It’s Peter, isn’t it?. You’re safe here, I promise, do you want to come down?” Asked the woman below him, smiling up at him. She had startling green eyes and a shock of vibrant red hair, that cropped at her shoulders. She didn’t strike Peter is overwhelmingly threatening, but he’d been deceived before, so he stayed put.

Instinctively touching his face, Peter gritted his teeth and his finger tips touched his face instead of his mask. This was bad, this was really, really bad. Now, more than ever, it was essential that no-one saw him without his mask. He supposed this was it, the moment he’d been dreading. The moment he’d be unmasked.

“Where am I? Who are you?” Peter questioned aggressively, panic beginning to seep through his veins. The throbbing in his head was making it increasingly difficult to see and as he squinted down at her, his vision began to spin, fuzzing at the peripheral. 

The woman raised her palms towards him.

“My name is Jean Grey. You’re at the Xavier School. You’re safe here”

Holy. Shit. Of course he was at Xavier’s school. What other place on the continent would have access to such advanced equipment and technologies, other than SHIELD. He’d heard rumours about this place, mostly just pure speculation about whether it even existed.

Exhaling deeply, Peter dropped from the ceiling to stand on the stretcher below.

“I’m sorry…it’s kind of an instinct.’He apologised, gesturing the ceiling. He’d barely let his guard down for a second however, when the memory of what must have happened flooded back to him. “Oh shit-“

“I’m sorry I had to take your mask off, I needed to treat your injuries.” She apologised, the weight in her voice indicating that she did understand the seriousness of the action. ”And don’t worry, your Aunt knows you’re here and so do your friends”

Peter gaped back at her and was just about to bombard her with another series of questions before she spoke again. "Yes I just read your mind, sorry I did that without your permission. You’ve been out for about 12 hours, you’re in upstate New York and you should try to relax, you have a serious head injury and you’re probably going to make it worse if you don’t calm down.”

Lost for words, Peter simply nodded wordlessly, mouth still wide open. Finally, after a few seconds of opening and closing his mouth, he managed to string his words into a sentence.

“You’re a telepath…”

Raising her eyebrow, Jean grinned back at him and opened her mouth to respond, only to be interrupted by the sound of the metal door opening and three new faces entering the room, one of whom Peter recognised instantly.

Below him, sat Charles Xavier, smiling up at him with a fascination that was more flattering than intrusive. Alongside him, stood a strikingly beautiful woman, with dark smooth skin and sweeping white hair and a tall dark haired man, who wore a pair of ruby coloured sunglasses.

“Mr Parker, how are you feeling?”

“You’re Charles Xavier” Peter stated stupidly, almost instantly regretting how much of a fool he was making of himself. Blushing, Peter forced himself to reply like a normal human being. “Uhh, it’s fine, I’m fine…wait actually no, it actually hurts like really bad. I think I’m concussed.”

“I’m not surprised, you had quite an ordeal. Do you remember anything about what happened?”

Furrowing his brow, Peter stared down at the people below him, mind racing the memories before he had found himself asleep here. He vaguely recalled the violent heat of naked flames, shattering pain of something blunt crashing against his head and the vague outline of a man.

“Kinda, maybe…no, no I don’t. He answered eventually. He decided now was a good time to sit down on the bed, if only for politeness. “Wait, I know this sounds really odd, but could you like, prove to me you are who you say you are?”

Peter despised how often he had to do this - make sure what he was experiencing was actually reality. Mysterio had really royally fucked with him.Despite there being no actual warning signs that this wasn’t real, he knew better than to take their claims at face value.

‘Does this suffice?’

Peter was half surprised he didn’t end up stuck to the ceiling, for the sound of the Professors voice in his head is enough to make his heart pound. So this really was them.

“First.” Peter grimaced, shaking his head as if to tip the Professors voice out of it, “That was terrifying, please never do that again. And secondly yes, that’s fine.”

“Good, now if you wouldn’t mind letting Jean take a look at your head, we should be able to make it a lot less painful for you”. Oh god, yes please.

Nodding, Peter sat down on the stretcher, trying not to blush at the four pairs of eyes that watched him with considerable interest. His head hurt so bad that his ears were ringing and it hurt just to raise his eyebrow.

“What happened to it?” He moaned, hissing as Jean touched his head carefully with something that smelt strongly alcoholic. 

“We were hoping you could answer that,I’m afraid.” The Professor responded, moving closer to Peter as he spoke, “ It also appeared whoever was responsible used a neutralising agent against you with inhibited your cellular regeneration.”

Great just great. The faint memory of a sharp pain in his neck came to the front of his mind and he clapped his hand against his skin.

“I got shot in the neck.” He announced, alarmed, but more confused than anything.

“Yes, with this” Jean provided. In her palm sat a silver metallic disk, about the size of a penny, flush on one side. “Have you ever seen something like this before?”

“Never? So this thing stopped me healing?” He asked, stomach stewing uneasily.

“We think it took away all of your abilities for a short time, but most significantly your heeling factor.”

He’d seen the disgusting contraptions which were used against mutants to neutralise their abilities - great hulking collars which stopped mutants from exercising their abilities. He’d never really considered if they’d work on him. Then again, he didn’t really know what the bite had done to his body at all.But he’d never even dreamed they could weaponise something like that so easily. It made him feel nauseous, that he could be rendered completely defenceless in a split second, unable to help himself or anyone else.

“You only had the thing on for a few minutes, but by the time we’d got to you, you were already injured.”

It was the man wearing the red sunglasses who spoke up this time. He vaguely thought he might know his name, from a news broadcast but he wasn’t sure.

“Scott Summers, by the way” He offered, features remaining stoic, “And this is Ororo Monroe”.

“Your injuries were consistent with fatal blunt force trauma Peter, you should you be dead. You’ve had a very lucky escape.” Jean continued.

The adults looked in the room looked incredibly serious, yet Peter only shrugged. The almost dying thing was pretty common now, so much that he felt significantly desensitised to watching his life flash before his eyes. The fact that whoever had attacked him had been able to completely suck away his healing capacity however, did make him feel rather uneasy.

“Do you have any idea who attacked me?” He asked. “Sorry for all the questions, I just really can’t remember anything.”

“Not yet.” Ororo replied, “There are plenty of people who have a keen interest in targeting mutants. What we’re more concerned about is who made such a device and who’s it is that’s supplying them”. 

She wasn’t wrong. Incidents involving mutants had practically exploded since the blip. Barely a day seemed to go by without some form of attack.

“Right”, Peter breathed, finally feeling as if he was fitting together what the hell was going on, despite having a million more questions on the tip of his tongue.

Any answer that Peter was about to get however, was quickly put on the back burner, by the sound of aloud voice rattling outside the door.

“You wouldn’t have gotten hurt if you didn’t mess around and ruin the simulation!”

“Well if the training was more interesting then maybe I’d maybe be more interesting in the training.”

“I am not responsible for entertaining you, I’m not your babysitter!”

As a look of exasperation settled over Scott’s face, Peter blinked in a surprise as a short, brunette girl literally materialised through the door. So wrapped up in conversation, she barely even registered the five people in the room she’d just entered. When she did however, her mouth popped open into an O-shape and she exclaimed:

“Oh crap!”

She stared directly at him for a second, before looking to the Professor.

“I’m sorry I completely forgot you were in here! Bobby don’t-“

It was only half a second, before the metal doors opened again and a boy entered the room, clearly the other half of the yelling.

Both the boy and girl were dressed in tastefully coloured skin tight suits, the girl in yellow and the boy in the blue, both displaying the letter X. Peter would have placed the girl around her early 20’s, whilst the boy, who looked of a similar build and height to Peter, must have been about 17 or 18.

His hair was a light sandy brown colour and his eyes were a warm golden brown. As he walked, he held his nose, from which a considerable amount of blood was dripping.

“Kitty, you know this really won’t look good for you, your students getting seriously injured all the time - Oh, hi!”

The boy smiled pleasantly at the people in front of him, slowly taking in one person at a time. When he reached Peter, however, his jaw dropped and he opened his mouth wide in shock. Eyes widening, the boy exclaimed:

“Oh my god, you’re-“

“Bobby! What did you do?” It was Jean who interrupted him. As she walked away from Peter, to his surprise, the alcohol wipe she’d been pressing against his wound remained pushed against his head, resisting gravity. He probably should stop being surprised at seeing people use their abilities, Peter thought, after all, this was a school for mutants.

“It’s nothing!” Bobby stuttered, eyes bouncing between Jean and Peter and back again. Peter’s felt his face redden under Bobby’s gaze. No matter how often people recognised him now, the embarrassment he felt when someone noticed him didn’t subside. Moreover, the fact the Peter had no idea who this person was, yet he knew both who Peter was and who Spider-Man was, was enough to send his heart racing.

“I’m sorry we interrupted” Kitty groaned, eyes narrowed at Bobby.

“It doesn't look like nothing”, Jean scolded, touching Bobby’s nose delicately with her index finger, “Oh Bobby you’ve broken it.”

“It’s fine I heal fast!” Bobby shrugged off, still watching Peter, “And besides it’ll probably make me look really rugged and masculine.”

“No, you don’t heal fast.” Kitty interjected, “That’s literally not your mutation. And no you won’t look rugged you’re going to have two black eyes and a wonky nose.”

Huffing, Kitty grabbed the rubbing alcohol from the counter and began to clean Bobby’s face. Peter watched as Jean and Ororo exchanged bemused looks, as Scott looked grumpily at the pair of them.

“Peter, this is Kitty Pryde, she’s one of our Professors, alongside Jean, Scott and Ororo. And this is Robert Drake, he’s one of our older students.”

The pair of them smiled at Peter, Bobby appearing to forget his face was covered in blood.

“It’s nice to meet you…” Peter managed, feeling himself start to panic.

Glancing at Bobby and Kitty, the Professor raised an eyebrow. The pair were definitely completely unaware of the spectacle they’d just caused and the tense situation they’d just interrupted.

“Miss Pryde, do you mind caring to Robert upstairs so we can have a moment alone with Peter?”

“Yeah, sure thing” Kitty replied, her cheeks flushing. Bobby meanwhile pouted.

“And Robert, I trust you can keep this quiet for a while?” The Professor continued. At this, Bobby raised both of his eyebrows and looked sincerely back at the Professor.

“Absolutely” He nodded and Kitty shook her head with annoyance, before grabbing Bobby’s hand and yanking him literally throughthe door. If Peter wasn’t so stressed and exhausted and just confused, he might have actually laughed at them.

“He’s going to tell everyone.” Scott remarked, plainly.

“Definitely.” Ororo confirmed.

“But that’s not something you have to worry about Mr. Parker.” Seemingly the only one who had noticed that Peter was about to fully freak out. “We’re very good at keeping secrets, it’s what we do best.”

He wanted to believe the Professor, he really did, but taking off the mask made him vulnerable and he couldn’t afford to forget that. He was right however; Peter didn’t doubt that this school had quite a few years of experience on him in the art of keeping secrets.

“You’re healing, but not as fast as I’d like, considering the healing factor. I’d guess whatever suppressant was used against you is still in your system.” Jean concluded finally, frowning down at him.

Peter gulped. Not once since gaining his abilities had he taken more than 12 hours to heal.

“Obviously, it’s your decision, but I’d like you to stay here until we can make sure there’s no lasting damage.” Jean continued, the concern in her voice apparent. “It would also be useful for us to see what kind of devices are being used against mutants. To be totally honest, I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Breathing heavily, Peter chewed his lip. He disliked the thought of being away from the city, considering the constant feeling fear he experienced of May, or MJ or Ned or Happy coming to harm now his identity had been exposed. Rationally, however, he knew he wouldn’t be much help protecting them walking round with a serious head injury and he knew he owed it to the X-Men for saving his ass.

“Yeah, that’s fine.” He nodded, forcing a smile of agreement onto his face, despite the anxiety in his stomach.

“Good. “ The Professor said, smiling kindly at Peter. For now, there’s a change of clothes for you over there, alongside your belongings. We can arrange a dorm room for you for tonight, but for now I’d recommend getting some sleep down here.” 

“Oh, I don’t wanna be a hassle, really you don’t have to do that.” He already felt guilty enough that they’d had to rescue him, the image of himself, defenceless and passed in the arms of the man with the ruby glasses, floating in his mind. They’d done plenty enough for him already.

“Nonsense, my boy.” The Professor argued, “It’s not a problem.”

It was only once the adults had left and Peter was alone that he noticed how awful his appearance was. The gash in his head looked violent and raw, the skin around it bruised and swollen.

Grabbing the clothes that the Professor had indicated, a sweatsuit embroiled with the school’s logo, Peter changed quickly before checking his phone. Despite it now being 8:00am and having been passed out for like 12 hours, he still felt ridiculously tired. It was nerve-racking to know that there were devices out there that could completely annihilate his abilities. For a very long time now, he’d come to think of himself as inseparable with his powers. But it was true - as much as he hated to admit it, he was far more vulnerable than he liked to admit.

Somewhere in-between laying back down on the bed and falling asleep, he texted May first and then MJ and Ned. As expected, he had a ridiculous amount of missed calls from the three of them, for which, despite the circumstances, he felt ridiculously guilty. By the time they had replied, however, Peter had passed out cold once again, lulled to sleep by the promise of numbness.


	4. Peter

When he finally awoke, he was alone this time. And fuck, was he hungry. Stifling a yawn and rolling off the bed and onto his feet, he waited for a wave of dizziness and nausea to hit. When it did, however, it was far less severe than he expected and the throbbing in his head has lessened significantly. Noticing a small mirror on the counter beside him, he padded over to inspect his head. It had definitely healed significantly, but the wound hasn’t quite closed yet and still gleamed an angry crimson. 

If his healing factor was working again, however, his spider-sense definitely wasn't, for he nearly jolted out of his skin when the door glided open, bringing with it a new face into the room. Despite his efforts to mask the surprise on his face as she entered the rooms, he clearly hadn’t done a substantial enough job. 

“Aren’t you supposed to have a sixth sense?” The woman smirked, looking him up and down in a way that was both intimidating and intriguing. 

“Are you a telepath too?” He quipped, whilst simultaneously trying to suppress the redness that was creeping up his cheeks. 

“Why, do you have something to hide?" She replied, tilting her head as she looked down at him confidently. “Relax, kid, I’m Rogue, it’s nice to meet you. Are you hungry?” 

She held out a gloved hand and smiled charmingly at him, quickly weathering through the intimidating persona that she’d managed to build in a matter of seconds. 

Shaking her hand, he nodded enthusiastically. 

“Starving.” 

Peter’s eyes widened with glee, as she drew a couple of breakfast bars out of her jacket pocket and handed them over. 

“We thought you’d be hungry…oh damn it, that makes it sound like a cult. This is why I don’t deal with the new arrivals” 

Peter snorted and had to place his hand over his mouth to stop himself spraying cerial over the floor. He liked Rogue. She was both intimidating cool and impossibly endearing, in a way that made you want to listen to her. She reminded him a lot of MJ. 

“Jean said you’d be hungry. She wanted to come to check on you herself when you woke up. She’s teaching a class at the moment but she’ll come to see you later.” 

Peter nodded, finishing off the rest of the bar in a matter of seconds. 

“Don’t worry, there’s a lot more where that came from. Lunch is in like 40 minutes, but until then, you have the pleasure of me giving you the grand tour.” She said, before winking at him, “Sorry, everyone else was busy”. 

She took him first down the broad metal corridor on the basement level, before they climbed into an elevator and into the main school building. 

It really was breathtaking; stunning Victorian architecture integrated effortlessly with modern technology. She leads him first through the first and second floors, all of which were classrooms or offices and then along with the third and fourth floors, all of which were dorm rooms. Despite it being the summer holidays, the school was surprisingly busy. He just has walked passed a dozen classrooms, each of which was brimmed with students. The corridors themselves, however, were completely empty. 

“Do the students say here over summer?” Peter enquired, as they exited onto the grass lawn on the bottom floor. 

“Hmm... I’d say about half do. A lot of them don’t have families to go back to, they’re runaways or their parents are just dicks.” She responded. 

As they walked out further on to the lawn and into the beaming sunlight, Peter was able to take in the exterior of the building for the first time. It really was a mansion: astonishingly extravagant and grand in every way. 

“We still have classes over the summer, but it’s more to keep them entertained than anything else. We’re not completely evil.” She grinned, “For the younger kids it’s more just glorified babysitting and making sure they can control their abilities - although don’t tell the Professor I said that and for the older kids it’s training and extra exam help.”

“Training to be in the X-Men?” He pondered, his interest peaking. Despite the frequency at which they appeared on the news nowadays, relatively little was actually known about Xavier and the X-Men. 

“Not necessarily. Despite the crap the media says about Xavier, we’re not running a mutant extremist camp here. It’s up to all the students if they want to be on the team and stay on at the school or if they want to go back out into the normal world and lead a normal life.” 

Eventually, they looped back into the mansion and back up the stairs to the third floor. 

“We’ve got a room here for you on the third floor. Sorry, you’ll have to share for the moment - half the rooms are occupied and the others are being renovated over summer.” 

Peter shrugged, unbothered. After sleeping on a stretcher for a good 16 hours, he’d be glad to just sleep in a normal twin bed. He’d only be here at the most two more nights anyway. 

She lead him into a surprisingly large dorm, with oak panelling on the walls from floor to ceiling and two single beds, one tucked behind the door and one directly in front of it. 

The bed in front of the door is clearly occupied; carefully made, but with a fresh pile of laundry dumped on top of it and random belongings scattered on the surfaces around it. Meanwhile, the bed behind the door and it’s surrounding area were completely blank. 

“I’ll go grab you some lunch and bring it up here. Most of the kids know you’re here and I’m guessing you’d rather not get mobbed by an army of 12-year-olds.” 

Peter laughs but threw her back a grateful sigh of relief. After the overwhelming day he’d had, he wanted nothing more than to just crash out by himself all day. Even if Rogue wasn’t a telepath, which he was assuming she wasn’t, she was still highly intuitive. 

“Thank you, like seriously thank you.” 

“No problem. I’ll bring you some more clothes as well, it’s gonna get super hot today. Catch you later.” She’d made it halfway out of the door when a smile crept onto her face and she turned around to face him again, “Oh and Peter, don’t let him talk to death”. 

Before Peter even had the chance to ask what she had meant, Rogue had clicked the door behind her and disappeared into the hall.

Collapsing down on the bed, Peter kicked off his shoes and breathed slowly and deeply. This whole place was brilliant. Insane, but brilliant. 

After a few minutes of just lying there, he pulled out his phone and brought up MJ's number. Much to his surprise, she picked up on the first ring. She almost always left it until the last moment to pick up the phone, as if to remind Peter that she was far too cool for him. 

"Hey-" He managed to say before she cut him off mercilessly. 

"Holy crap, man am I happy to hear your voice." She exclaimed, before settling back to her normal cool exterior, "I'm glad you're alive dipshit, where the hell are you?"

"I'm umm...I don't know if I'm allowed to say." He admitted. For all Peter knew, the X-Men might wipe MJ's mind clean if they find out she knew about Xavier's. He'd rather spare her the misfortune. "But I'm safe. I'm good, I promise. Are you good?" 

"I'm good now I know you're good." He listened to MJ speak for a short while, her cool tone an anchor of calmness and normality. Much to his disappointment, he'd missed the mutant rights rally, but apparently there'd been a fantastic turnout. Once MJ was satisfied he wasn't being held against his will, he ended the call and was halfway through typing a reply to Ned when the door thudded open. To his surprise, it wasn’t Rogue, however. 

Not sure whether to make himself known or not, Peter watched as the boy marched into the room. Stopping only to drop his backpack to his feet, the boy collapsed onto his mattress with an exasperated groan. Peter couldn’t see his face, for he instantly pressed it into his pillow, muffling his moaning. All that was visible, was a grey gym short, a blue t-shirt and a tuft of light brown hair.

After about thirty seconds, Peter gathered the boy still had yet to notice Peter’s presence in his dorm room and decided against being a creep and pretending not to be there any longer. He was starting to think it may have been more appropriate to just stay downstairs in the laboratory, rather than compromising this kid’s privacy. 

“Hey-

“Oh my God” Lifting his head to face Peter, the boy blinked widely back at Peter, shocked within an inch of his life at Peter’s greeting. Eyes wide, he stared back at Peter, his body tense and his palms raised in Peter’s direction. 

“Sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you...I just didn’t want to be creepy”. Peter grimaced, painfully aware of the consecutively bad first impressions he seemed to be making here. 

Now that the boy was looking at Peter, he realised he actually recognised him. It’d been the guy with the broken nose that had come in earlier that day... what was his name...oh wait, yes he knew. 

“It’s Robert, isn’t it?” 

At that the boy exchanged his look of surprise, for one of embarrassment. He appeared to have momentarily frozen, too self-conscious to put together a logical response. 

When he did respond, he did so smiling shyly at Peter. 

“Bobby, it’s Bobby...It’s okay, I just didn’t think anyone else would be in here.” 

He seemed more fascinated than mortified now and stared back at Peter with intense interest, as he came to recognise Peter. 

“You’re Peter, you’re...” He began, before flushing a brilliant red and tailing off. “Sorry, I’m being super weird, I just didn’t expect anyone else to be here”. 

Laughing uneasily, Bobby sat up on his bed and folded his legs, so that he was level with Peter.

“Sorry! Don’t worry, I’ll only be here for a couple of days then I’ll be out of your hair” He replied, “I’m just here until my head is healed”. 

Peter gestured to his head and Bobby nodded, before looking away briefly and back at him once again. 

“No, no it’s fine, I don’t mind! I just haven’t had a roommate in while, I-“ 

When the door clicked open again, Bobby jolted frowning at Rogue as she entered.

She carrying an armful of snacks, amongst them, a few candy bars, a couple of sandwiches, a bottle of water and a banana. Marching straight past Bobby, for which she earned a territorial glare, she dropped the contents of her arms onto the bed in front of Peter. 

“Thanks!” He exclaimed, instantly grabbing a candy bar and shoving it into his mouth. 

“We’re getting room service now?” Bobby asked. 

“No, he gets room service.” She snapped, seemingly unimpressed. “He’s injured. You get to walk downstairs.” 

“But I’m injured” He argued pointing to his nose. Now that Peter looked, his nose did look pretty swollen and there was a little bit of bruising under one eye. 

Rogue scoffed, clearly having none of it. “And who’s fault is that?” She asked, “Put some ice on it.” 

At that, Bobby narrowed his eyes and smiled at her innocently. He was clearly keen to see how far he could push her. 

“And anyway, it’s your fault for telling half the school that he’s here.” She continued cooly, before turning to Peter again, “You’ll have to excuse Bobby, he’s a fan.” 

Turning beetroot red and scowling back at her, Bobby stuttered, “I’m not…it’s not weird! He’s an Avenger, it’s just interesting.” 

Smirking, she moved to leave the room, clearly satisfied with embarrassing Bobby. “Jean will come to get you to do some more checks on you later, Peter, see you”. 

As soon as the door had shut behind her, Bobby immediately started to babble. 

“I’m not a fan, I promise….wait no obviously I think you’re cool but not in a weird way.” 

Chuckling, Peter grinned at him, “Don’t worry about it…it’s nice for people not to think I’m an egotistical maniac for a change.” 

Breathing a sigh of relief, Bobby’s eyes lit up and he smiled at Peter, “Yeah, a lot of people thinks the X-Men are a bunch of mutant terrorists, you’ll fit in fine here.” 

For the next half an hour or so, Peter chatted to Bobby, or rather, Peter answered Bobby’s barrage of questions. Bobby was ridiculously likeable; admittedly, he told a lot of bad puns and squirmed every time the conversation began to smell even slightly serious, but he was funny and had a warm quality to him that you couldn’t fake. He didn’t seem to want to talk about himself a lot, however. All Peter managed to get out of him was that he was from Long Island, but his parents lived in Boston now and he was 17 now, but he’d been at Xavier’s since he was 10. He was curious as to what Bobby’s mutation was, but he wasn’t sure if that wasn’t something you asked, but rather waited to be told. 

By the time they were interrupted by another person knocking on the door, Peter was deep in conversation the pair of them barely registered the sound at first. This time, the door opened to reveal the woman who’d been bickering with Bobby; Kitty, who entered with a self-assured smile. 

“Hi Peter”, She smiled, like Rogue, completely ignoring Bobby’s existence. 

“You know Kitty, it’s really rude to come in my room and completely ignore me.” Whilst his tone was jovial, Peter could sense a slight bluntness that hadn’t been present in his exchange with Rogue. 

Kitty shook her head at him, already irritated, “Don’t you have a class to be in?” 

Looking down at his phone, Bobby huffed. “You know, I do have class, but I’m not going because you told me to I’m going because I was going anyway.” 

Bobby hopped off his bed and grabbed his backpack, turning to them as he reached the door. 

“Bye, Peter, see you later.” He grinned, to which Kitty rolled her eyes as he shut the door behind him. 

At first, Peter had thought Bobby and Kitty’s relationship was just a series of harmless jabs, but the more he’d seen, the more he felt aware of the thick level of awkwardness between them that settled whenever they interacted. One thing that was for certain, was that it definitely wasn’t merely a teacher-student relationship. 

“Anyway, Jean needs you downstairs, she wants to do some more tests on you.” 

Once he was downstairs, Jean set to work carefully checking his vitals, before inspecting his head wound again and taking some blood. It was actually pretty nice to be thoroughly medically examined, rather than having to rely on band-aids and good faith. She also had him test his reflexes, as well as making sure he could still stick to the ceiling. Finally, she had him lift a series of weights, with which he had no difficulty, but still felt a little embarrassed about doing. 

"And you don't remember anything about what happened?" She asked, as finishes dressing his wound. 

"I mean...sort of, images, sounds you know." He said. 

Jean nodded, then moved to sit down on the stool in front of him. 

"I could read your mind, see if I can make sense of anything" She suggested, "But it's your decision." 

Peter squirmed in his seat. He didn't like the idea of anyone poking around in his head, but he knew it was selfish to let his inhibitions get in the way of finding out what was going on. 

"Okay," Peter said, nodding nervously. 

Lifting her hands to touch his temples, Jean stared at him intently. It was slightly unnerving that he couldn't even feel her combing through his mind. It wasn't a surprise that people found telepathy so terrifying. Then, just as Peter thought that Jean had failed to find anything, she straightened up and her eyes widened. 

"Did you find anything?" Peter asked quickly, fascinated at the premise she could have found a memory in his head that he couldn't recall. 

Jean frowned, then let her calm expression settle over her once more. 

"No, nothing." She said.

Peter didn't believe her for a second. Her heartbeat had jumped as she'd spoken; a clear sign she was lying. For a moment he thought about calling her bluff, but quickly decided against it, when he considered the reality of the situation. He didn't have a reason to trust the X-Men and starting an argument with a telepath probably wouldn't go well for him.

When they were finished, Jean pointed him in the direction of the canteen. As he tread down the corridor in search of food, he tried not to pay too much attention to the whispers of students that passed him bye. It wasn’t anything the wasn’t used to by now, but he’d never particularly liked being the centre of attention, not as Peter Parker anyway. Reassuringly, however, the children’s stares appeared for curious than resentful; a welcome change from the glares and insults he sometimes received in the city. 

The canteen was a long open room, with large double doors that opened out onto a patio. Peter grabbed a plate and sat alone, not because he was anti-social, but rather, because this was still a High School and he was blissfully unaware of its politics. The room itself was pretty empty; most of the students he could see were eating outside in the midsummer heat. He had almost finished eating when the chair beside him was pulled out and someone sat down. 

“Mind if I join you?” Kitty asked out of politeness, dropping a stack of papers on the surface. 

Peter nodded enthusiastically, through his mouthful of spaghetti. 

“Thanks”, She nodded, taking a bite out of her own meal, “Might give me a chance to make a slightly better impression.”

Shaking his head energetically, he gulped down his food, “No, you didn’t at all.” Frankly, he’d been glad for the silly interruptions in an otherwise overwhelming day. Peter wasn’t quite sure what think of Kitty yet. She seemed serious and responsible, but in a way that daring, not boring in the slightest.

“You’re a Professor, right?” He inquired, “What do you teach?” 

Eyes lighting up in response, she tossed her long hair over her shoulder. “Mostly chemistry and physics and computer science for the kids who are interested. I take most of the training classes too.” 

Just as impressed as he’d expected to be, Peter grinned at her, “That’s awesome! So you’re an X-Man too?” 

Kitty blushed, tucking a loose strand of her behind her ear. “Yeah, since the blip.” 

Peter knew that a lot of people had been forced to grow up very fast as a result of Thanos and whilst he’d have done anything to spend those precious few years with Tony, it was an unspoken truth that those who had blipped had been spared the burden of living through those tough five years.

Rather than let the conversation drift towards Thanos and the blip, Peter quickly changed the subject. 

"By the way, your powers are like the coolest thing I've ever seen," Peter said and Kitty blushes. "You’ve got to be like manipulating the electromagnetic fields, that’s how it works?”

“Exactly” She replied, emboldened by Peter’s interest, “I short out machines when I phase through them too.” 

“That’s got to be useful in a fight.” 

“Meh, so so, I mean when your opponent could literally just send you to sleep at any moment you’re always somewhat outmanoeuvred.” 

“But you’ve gotta be good if you’re in charge of training.” He countered. Despite Kitty’s credentials and abilities, she was rather self-deprecating. 

“Yes, but as you saw earlier, that doesn’t always go particularly smoothly, doesn’t exactly look too good when your students are breaking bones.” She was clearly referencing Bobby’s accident. 

“Oh yeah, what actually happened?” 

“He was showing off instead of taking it seriously, he does that a fair bit.” She said. "He's used to getting away with it. He's been here so long he's got half the teachers under his thumb." 

Peter laughed. 

"But not you?" He asked. 

"No." Kitty said firmly, "We don't really get along anymore." 

Petter nodded. He didn't want to pry, but nevertheless, he was still curious.


	5. Bobby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A spot of spring-cleaning leads Bobby to reminisce over his past with John.

Despite his instance that his nose was barely broken, much to Bobby’s dismay, he’d been signed off training for the week.

On the bright side, he now had a new roommate, in the form of Peter. It had been a strange thing to get used to in the beginning; he hadn’t had a roommate since John and given John’s mutation, he’d never had to worry about making the room go cold whilst they slapped. Maybe this was all part of the Professor’s scheme to get his powers under control again.

Within a couple of days, however, they’d fallen into a fairly natural regime, as roommates often did. He liked Peter a lot. And not just because of his impossibly cool secret identity. It was a breath of fresh air, to be spoken about things other than his control, or his parents or his feelings. Peter talked to him about things that he supposed normal teenager boys spoke about - like Star Wars and who’d win in a fight between Ororo and Thor.

He wasn’t naive enough to get too comfortable. He knew Peter would be gone from Xavier’s as soon as he and the others had worked out who’d attacked him.

The incident had made the local news, although the reports did nothing but confuse the situation further. Some claimed that eyewitnesses had seen Spider-Man attack unidentified mutants; others claimed Spider-Man had been attacked by masked figures. No-one appeared to be more confused by the whole affair than Peter.

It was a whole three days before Bobby even thought to ask Peter what he was doing here. Or rather, he built up the nerve too. It had been another sweltering night and he hadn’t a chance of getting to sleep. He knew Peter was still awake, for he was tossing and turning in his twin bed, huffing as he moved positions.

“I’m gonna open the window,” Bobby said quietly, sliding the glass pane up and taking a deep breath of the midnight air. The air outside was barely cooler than their room, but any marginal different was welcome.

Bobby heard Peter grunt behind him, before sliding off his bed and padding over to the open window. The ledge was large enough to perch on, so Peter did exactly that, taking a big gulp of cooler air. Bobby dropped back down to sit on the edge of his bed, then turned to face Peter, thinking of how to phrase his words.

“Peter, what like, actually happened? Like why are you actually here?” He asked, instantly realising how offensive that sounded. He was about to stammer an apology, when Peter laughed awkwardly, sliding his palm down his pant leg.

“I tried to save someone and I got attacked by some military-looking guys with some power suppressant thing.” He answered casually, quite obviously unaware of the insanity of his escapades, “Then I got rescued by the X-Men and they brought me here to patch me up.”

“But why are you still here? I thought you were gonna go once your head had healed?” He asked. Sometimes, he genuinely just couldn’t keep the words inside of him. It was as if he had a compulsion to say the wrong thing.

Peter raised his eyebrows, then folded his arms.

“Well, we have to find out who’s making power suppressants. It’s not just a mutant problem.” Peter said.

Moving back over to his bed and throwing himself down on the mattress, Peter stared up at the ceiling.

“And it’s kinda nice here, you know not having everyone stare at you for the wrong reasons .” He added.

He didn’t feel the need to ask Peter any more questions. He knew exactly what that was like.

Being excused from training, much to Bobby’s disappointment didn’t mean he was excused from chores. He usually wouldn’t have minded helping out; he took great pleasure in helping out with cooking in particular. When Scott dragged him up to the attic, however, he was less than enthused, given it was another baking hot day and Peter was nowhere to be seen.

He should have known better than to come out of his room. He was practically a sitting duck for some DIY scheme.

The attic itself was a long, narrow room, veiled with a thick layer of dust that tickled the back of his throat. On both sides of the room, were boxes stacked as high as the ceiling, assembled in a haphazard fashion. He’d spent a good few hours up here when he’d first come to the institute as a child; it was the perfect hiding spot.

They set to work separating trash from treasure, dumping the contents of the boxes onto the clearing in the middle and rifling through the contents. He'd brought a water bottle with him, which he filled with icy water, washing away the dust and dirt that was coating his throat. 

"Hey Bobby, come here." Scott beckoned after half an hour or so. Scott didn't make a lot of small talking, making him the exact opposite of Bobby. In fact, Bobby theorised that a normal person was halfway between Scott's frosty silence and his own relentless babbling. 

Turning away from the pile of newspaper clippings he'd be sifting through, he meandered over to where Scott was crouching. 

"I think these are some of your things." He said. 

Bending down over the box, Bobby exhaled as the forgotten items came into view. He'd known that they'd emptied the dorms of the students who had vanished after a couple of years. They'd had no idea that those who had blipped would reappear. It was all about coming to terms with what had occurred and finding a way of moving on. 

"I can't believe we missed this stuff," Scott said sorrily. 

The contents of the box consisted mainly of old books and posters, the latter of which must have been pulled off of his bedroom wall. At the bottom of the box, meanwhile, set a solitary notebook. Running the pages through his fingers, he slid the book open about midway. As he did, however, something slid from inside the notebook and into his lap. 

As he took the photograph into his hands, Bobby's fingers began to tingle. He hadn't let himself think about this day in so long. 

_It had been Christmas Day of the year they'd both turned sixteen, which had fallen in the midst of yet another prank war. Bobby's parents had gone on vacation, a vacation they'd failed to persuade him to join them on. As strange as it sounded, he'd always wanted to experience a Christmas at the institute. Or, more accurately, a Christmas with John._

_John hadn't joined the institute until Bobby was thirteen. He'd arrived a skittish, angry little thing, all skin and bones and fiery temper. Yet, with the aid of all his stubbornness, Bobby had slowly worn him down, their relationship evolving from fierce rivals to close confidants by the time they were both sixteen. That didn't mean, however, that they always got along._

_They'd been sitting down for lunch with the rest of students who'd remained for the holidays, Bobby having finished his meal. As John ate, shovelling food ravenously into his open maw, Bobby smirked at him arms folded. John scowled back at him, knowing Bobby was up to something._

_"You're up to something. I can feel it." John growled, dropping his fork and knife and putting his hands on the edge on the table to push himself up. Much to his confusion, as he attempted to pull himself up, he found his shoes firmly stuck the ground._

_"I don't know what you're talking about." He grinned, eyes twinkling in anticipation. For a moment, the two of them stared at each other, the rest of the table completely oblivious to what was unfolding. They'd been scolded numerous time for their antics recently. According to Scott, they were a bad influence on the rest of the children._

_Then, just as John moved to grab his lighter, Bobby hopped to his feet, pinning John's arms to the table cleanly with his ice._

_"Bobby," John growled, in a way that sent a shiver up Bobby's spine._

_"Boys, no powers inside," Ororo said, shaking her head disapprovingly._

_"Are you kidding me, I didn't do anything. This is bullshit." John shouted. Bobby was always surprised that John had the audacity to speak back to his teachers._

_Bobby knew he should have felt bad. But he couldn't help it. If he didn't win the (Prank) battle, he'd never win the war._

_Sprinting around to the other side of the table, Bobby pulled his own Santa hat off of his head and placed it on John's, who still remained completely immobile in Bobby's ice._

_"Hey Kitty, take a photo of me with the grinch," Bobby commanded, throwing his arms around John romantically._

"I remember that like it was yesterday," Scott said, snapping Bobby out of his memories and into the present. Bobby's cheeks flushed at hot. 

Humming, Bobby stood up quickly, turning his face away from Scott. It had been his favourite photo for a time and he'd kept it tucked in the corner of his mirror, much to John's annoyance. 

Bobby didn't say another word for the remainder of their time in the attic, disappearing downstairs as soon as Scott excused him. 

Before making his way over to lunch, he dipped over to his room, relieved to find it empty. For a short time, he simply sat down on his bed and stared ahead, the photograph still caught between his fingertips. 

It was so much easier not to think about John. Swallowing, he stood and walked slowly over to the mirror. He looked pretty much the same as when the photo had been captured; maybe his hair was a little longer and his skin slightly bronzed. He had no idea if John would look the same anymore. He didn't even know if he'd blipped. 

Swallowing, he placed the photo back into its place. 

He sat alone at lunch, choosing to sit in the kitchen instead of the main dining room. Giving up halfway through his plate of chicken and rice, he instead turned his attention to his water glass. Placing a lone finger against the side, he concentrated on making as many tiny ice cubes as he could, one at a time. 

"You're a show-off." 

Bobby jerked up his head at the sound of Rogue's voice. He hadn't noticed for standing in the doorway, her arm leaning against the frame. 

"If the X-Men ever disband at least I know I'll have a career in ice-sculpting." He quipped, failing however to put any humour in the tone of his voice. 

Rogue walked over to sit across from him, leaning back in her chair. 

"What's bothering you?" She asked plainly, staring at him with intent. Even after all these years, she could still read him like a book. It was strange that there wasn't the same tension between him and Rogue as there was between him and Kitty. Bobby supposed at least with Rogue there'd been closure. His relationship with Kitty, meanwhile, was an open wound. 

"Do you think I pushed John away?" He asked coldly, digging his nails into his fist. It was hard to talk to any of the older ones about John. For them, John had left six years ago. For Bobby, it had been just over a year. It was all incredibly raw. 

"No." Rogue replied, decisively, "You didn't push him away. John pushed himself away. I don't think part of him ever wanted to be here." 

Bobby exhaled deeply and Rogue shivered, as the temperature dropped a good five or so degrees. 

"Sorry," Bobby replied guiltily. Who was he kidding? Of course, his control was off. The cold was practically bleeding out of him. 

"You've got to talk about it, Bobby." 

Bobby merely shrugged, slipping from the room and heading off to his dorm. As he rushed along the corridor, he huffed, his breath exhaling in a stream of cold air. At least if he could train he could get this all out of his system. 

Smacking his door open with a clatter, he caught sight of Peter, standing with his back to Bobby in the corner of the room. Part of him felt elated at the sight of his roommate. Seeing someone who was completely untangled from this painful history was a relief.

"Bobby, who is this?" 

Having turned around to face Bobby, Peter's body looked tense and wound up and his brow was furrowed. 

"Sorry?" Bobby replied dumbly. 

“Who is this?” Peter asked again, his tone urgent and unnerving. Much to his dismay, Peter held in his hand the photo of himself and John. 

Bobby squeezed his palms together, to stop them from visibly shaking. He didn’t want to talk about John. Not when everything he said would have to be a half-truth.

“He… used to be my roommate. John. Why?” He said, the sentence coming out unnatural and stop-start.

“I saw him.” Peter replied quickly, “He was in the alleyway before I was attacked.” 

Bobby just stared at Peter blankly, he brain coming completely to a stop. He was vaguely aware that the room was getting colder, but he couldn’t concentrate enough to make himself stop. He couldn’t even place a label on how he was feeling, other than being completely overwhelmed. 

“You saw him.” Bobby managed to say. He’d had no idea where John was, God forbid if he was even alive and all this time he’d been in the city? It was as if he’d been taken back in time, to watch John leave all over again.

Peter nodded, eying Bobby nervously. 

Bobby meanwhile, still felt utterly lost. John was alive. They'd found John and they'd kept it from him.

Bobby was halfway down the corridor, in the direction of the Professor's office, before he was even aware of Peter's voice calling after him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry it has been a hot minute. I got a burst of motivation. Enjoy!
> 
> Also, I hope the flashback made sense!


	6. Bobby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bobby's outburst results in some surprising consequences.

It was by pure coincidence that Bobby ran into Scott before he’d made it to the Professor’s office. Perhaps in hindsight, he’d be grateful for that. It wouldn’t have been easy to pick a fight with a telepath.

Barrelling down onto the first-floor landing, Bobby stopped abruptly at the sound of the office door clicking open. As Scott emerged in the doorway, his broad shoulders cast shadows onto the wooden floor below him.

Folding his arms and pressing his lips together, Scott watched Bobby wordlessly as Bobby clicked into motion, storming towards him.

“You knew,” Bobby growled, failing to stop the hurt from leaking into his voice. Most of the students would be out of the lawn, enjoying the weather, so the pair had the luxury of privacy for now. That was until Peter clattered down the staircase, freezing at the sight of the pair of them.

Bobby watched as Scott looked towards Peter and back to Bobby, the sum of the events finally birthing in his mind.

“Bobby...”, Scott began, before faltering and sighing morosely.

“You knew that Peter saw John and you didn’t tell me.” He raged, not taking his eyes off Scott for a second. It went against every instinct that had been drilled into him, to stand there and yell at his teacher, but in that hot thick moment, those instincts didn’t mean a thing.

“Bobby, calm down,” Scott said firmly. He’d seen this scene far too many times before; Scott trying to talk down an upset or angry student. Yet in all those years, he’d never been on the receiving end.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He growled. “You of all people Scott…I thought you’d be on my side, on our side.”

“Bobby, please. Come sit down and we can talk about it.”

“No.” He spat. He’d had enough of this talking about his feels and therapy bullshit. “Explain to me why you didn’t think it was important to tell me.”

“Bobby, you’re right, you deserve an explanation.”

Bobby looked over his shoulder, at the sound of a new voice: Jean. Normally, he’d find her presence comforting. Right now, however, she was just another person trying to get inside his head. Moving towards him slowly, she placed her hand lightly on his shoulder. It took every shred of discipline Bobby had not to shrug it off.

Much to his disdain, Jean wasn’t alone. Kitty had now entered the fray, stepping up the staircase carefully.

“Did Kitty know, Rogue, Piotr?” He asked coldly. His tone was crisp and harsh, the words intended to sting. 

No-one said a word. That was all the answers he needed.

“That’s bullshit.” Bobby said, “He was my friend too.”

“Which is exactly why we didn’t tell you,” Kitty said, calmly.

At the sound of Kitty’s interjection, Bobby was instantly filled with rage. How could she possibly pretend to understand what was going on? That she knew what was best.

Bobby always felt cold. It wasn’t unwelcome, nor foreign, just a constant state of being. At this moment, however, his hands felt colder than he could ever remember them having done. It was impossible to think rationally at this moment. He was positively electrified with emotion, his body running on instinct.

“I didn’t even know if he was alive.” He growled, his eyes wide and burning. At that, Kitty looked down guiltily at her feet. “You always thought the worst of John. All of you. That’s why you didn’t tell me, isn’t it? You think he’s somehow guilty in all this.”

It was only now that Bobby noticed Jean had stepped away from him, drawing her hand back quickly. She was staring down at his hands strangely, but Bobby tried to ignore it. They’d probably just frosted over.

“We don’t know how he’s involved,” Jean said clearly, her voice precise and calculating. Treading back towards him, she stood directly in front of him and placed her hands on his arms delicately. Bobby froze at the warmth of her touch, blinking at the sudden pressure on his arms.

“Bobby, I need you to look down at your hands.”

Bobby was aware that she’d spoken to him in his head, for her lips didn’t move. It was something she and the Professor tried when a student lost control. It was a way to anchor them to something, let them focus on a voice and drown out the chaos which was going on outside.

Bobby lifted his hands slowly to waist hight, letting Jean’s touch guide him. At the sight of them, however, his knees almost buckled and a fresh wave of nausea engulfed him. Gone were his hands made from flesh, skin and bone. In their place, were ones made solidly of ice.

He glared down at his hands for a few seconds longer, just to make sure he hadn’t completely lost his mind. The picture before him, however, remained still.

“I think I’m gonna be sick.” He grumbled, his voice low and tight. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the sight before him. This definitely hadn’t happened before. He’d certainly remember this happening, wouldn’t he?

“Just breathe, Bobby,” Jean instructed. Obliging, he squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath, willing his hands to return to normal. It was the first thing they were taught at the institute, to turn that switch off.

Blinking through the daylight once more, Bobby exhaled at the return of his hands, this time made of flesh, skin and bone.

“I still think I’m going to be sick.” He grimaced.

—

Bobby had an oddly good track record with illness. He’d had an excessive number of accidents, at least half of those involving John in some capacity. However, he’d seldom ended up in the medical lab, far more often walking away without so much as a scratch. In the time that Peter had been at the mansion, Bobby had ended up in here more times than he had in the last year. Maybe that was Peter’s fault. Or rather, maybe it had to do with the fact that Bobby was slowly, completely losing it.

Huffing, he drew his knees inwards, head in his hands. He was seated on the sickbed, a bowl placed in front of him and a thermometer between his lips. Bobby didn’t really see the point in that. Homeostasis didn’t really apply when you were made of ice.

It was difficult to stay angry at Scott or Jean when they were fussing over him. It reminded him of when he’d first arrived at the institute, hiding behind Scott’s legs, the two of them against the world. He just wanted answers. He wanted the truth. But mostly he just wanted John.

Scott stood adjacently to him, leaning against the wall and watching Bobby intently. Scott wasn’t the easiest person to read. Yet Bobby knew right now he was probably worried. He understood why, in fact, he stood why everyone was.

At the side of the cylindrical door sliding open, Bobby lifted his head. The Professor had entered, much to Bobby’s relief, alone. Giving Bobby a gentle smile, he stopped in the centre of the room.

“I’m sorry I didn’t get here sooner Bobby, I’ve been out of the school today.” He said. Bobby shrugged.

“It’s okay.” He murmured, taking the thermometer from his mouth and passing it back over to Jean. It was a bizarre situation to negotiate. There'd never been a problem with Bobby, in all his years at the institute. Yet now, here he was, his teachers watching him as if he'd explode at any moment. He wondered if this was how John had felt. 

“Are you feeling any better?” The Professor continued.

“A little.” He replied, “I’m just a little nauseous." That was a gross understatement. He felt like utter shit. 

“At least you didn’t pass out,” Scott noted, earning a glare from Bobby. He knew exactly which incident Scott was referring to. Rationally, he knew Scott was trying to appease the situation and it normally would have worked. Bobby didn't feel normal at all, however. It was if he were a balloon that had been suddenly untethered. 

Clearing his throat, the Professor moved slightly forward, looking at Bobby directly.

“I know what happened today was confusing. But I think it actually explains a lot of how you’ve been feeling recently. I believe you’ve developed a secondary mutation.” The Professor said clearly, explaining things at plainly as possible.

Bobby’s gut twisted once again. It was the news he’d been expecting but equally dreading. He knew this would happen someday. But someday had always been the future up until now. His body was changing before his eyes and he couldn't do a thing to prevent it. 

Shuddering, Bobby swallowed roughly.

“What if…what if it happens again and I can’t turn it off. What if I’m just made of ice, permanently.”

It was incredibly difficult not to launch into a panicked stupor. What if he could never see his family again? What if everyone looked at him strangely? What if he melted? 

Behind the Professor, Scott and Jean exchanged calculated glances, clearly discussing something telepathically.

“Firstly, I highly doubt you're going to melt." The Professor smiled, snapping Bobby out of his spiralling, "I can’t give you an answer I’m afraid. But you have the greatest control of almost anyone I’ve seen with your scale of power. If anyone can control it, you can.”

Bobby wanted to believe the Professor so badly. He wanted his words to melt all the troubles away. But even the Professor couldn’t predict the future.

Sighing, Bobby straightened up, looking from Scott to Jean then to the Professor. It was now or never. 

“Look, I appreciate all this. Really. But I meant what I said. Somebody should have told me about John. It’s not fair.” He fought hard to keep his voice for wavering. These were the people who’d raised him for half of his life.

Sensing that Bobby wasn’t finished, the three of them remained silent, taking in the quiet. Collecting his thoughts, Bobby shuffled to hang his legs over the bed.

“I’m not asking you to support me or give me permission. But I’m going to go find John. I didn’t stop him leaving before, but I can stop him getting hurt now.”

Scott's sharp intake of breath split the silence that had settled. But he didn't say a word. No one did. For an understanding has settled that things were too far gone to convince Bobby otherwise. His mind was made. 

\-- 

As he made his way back up to his dormitory, Bobby's was racing. He had no idea how he'd find John. He didn't even know how to start. But that didn't matter. Every minute he spent confined in the mansion was a minute that things could go drastically wrong for John. 

He'd pack a bag and get the next train out in the morning. He'd known John had some family in Brooklyn. Maybe he'd start there?

Pushing his door open, Bobby paused at the sight of Peter. He was standing in front of Bobby's bed, his body tense, as if he'd been waiting. Maybe the Professor had enlisted Peter to convince Bobby to stay. 

"You're leaving?" Peter asked, pursing his lips together. 

Squeezing his fists together, Bobby nodded. Clicking the door behind him, he sat himself down on the bed. 

"Okay, cool. When do we leave?" 

Bobby gauped at Peter. He'd definitely not anticipated this response. Blinking back at Peter, he tilted his head. 

"I'm sorry?" He questioned. 

"I'm coming with you. To find your friend." Peter said simply, "It's important." 

Bobby could have cried on the spot. 

"Are you serious?" Bobby gasped, a smile splitting his face. 

"Yeah, I'm serious." Peter grinned, reaching out a hand to pull Bobby on to his feet.

"Pack your things," Peter instructed, "We're leaving tonight." 


	7. Peter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter and Bobby return to New York.

Despite all the drama that seemed to be going on at the institute; the politics of which, Peter could barely comprehend, the decision to help Bobby was a pretty straight forward one. The adults there may have been trying to protect him, but he was right. John was his best friend after all. Peter couldn't imagine being completely helpless to save Ned or MJ. It was his worst nightmare. 

Besides, it made total sense. They needed to find John to figure out whoever the masked men where. And Peter was dying to get back to the city. He missed Ned and MJ and May far more than he could put into words. 

Bobby had slept most of the train ride up, his duffle bag substituting a pillow. Peter wasn't surprised. The day's events had been nothing short of chaos. 

Once they'd arrived back at the apartment, no sooner had fit his key into the door, when it burst open with a clatter. Her face a picture of relief, Aunt May grabbed him to her chest so tight he thought he might suffocate. 

"Oh, Pete." She smiled, holding him so that the smell of her perfume filled his nostrils. 

"I'm fine, May." He laughed, squeezing her back. Drawing away, he gestured to Bobby, who smiled shyly, "This is Bobby Drake." 

"Thank you so much for letting me stay, I won't be a bother." He said, not just politely, but appearing genuinely concerned he was intruding. He hadn't seen too much of this side of Bobby before, this nervous, quiet side.

"Don't be silly." May said with a warm smile, "It's great to meet you, Bobby. Come on in, you must be exhausted." 

Once Bobby was settled in Peter's room, his breathing soft and calm, Peter slid back out into the living-area, dropping down onto the couch beside May. 

"Is he asleep?" She asked, reaching out to pull Peter towards her.

Peter hummed, blinking his own tiredness away. 

"I missed you, kiddo." May sighed, "This apartment is far to quiet without you." 

"I missed you too, thanks for this May." He said, sinking further into the sofa cushions. 

"Do his parents know he's here?" May asked. Peter furrowed his brow. He'd never even considered Bobby's parents. He supposed the teachers took on that de-facto role. 

"It's complicated." Peter admitted, "The school does." 

"Do his parents have a problem with him being a mutant? She continued, "I can't tell you how many mutant kids we see on the streets now. Bobby sounds like one of the lucky ones." 

"I never even thought to ask," Peter said regretfully. Maybe he was naive about how bad things were for mutant kids, considering how accepting May had been. 

"I don't know Pete. Maybe you should ask him." 

Standing to his feet, Peter padded back over to his room, guilt swirling in his stomach. Before he opened the door, however, he turned back to May and quirked an eyebrow. 

"May. Can you turn the AC up? We're gonna need it." 

\-- 

Peter rose early the following morning, changing quickly and slipping out of the apartment without waking Bobby or May. He'd left Bobby a text, to make it clear he hadn't abandoned him in an unfamiliar city. It barely took him ten minutes to zip through the streets and grab breakfast from MJ's favourite deli. The city was just beginning to thrum with early morning commuters, so he kept his head down, a baseball cap casting his face in shadow. He certainly hadn't missed the anxiety of always feeling watched. 

As they'd discussed, he clambered up the fire-escape of MJ's building rather than entering through the front entrance. Climbing level with her bedroom window, Peter knocked softly, settling himself down with his back against the brick. It had only been a number of seconds when the window slid open and MJ climbed out. Her hair was soft and loose, floating behind her gently in the hot summer breeze and she wore a bright smile. She grinned at him momentarily, before throwing herself into his waiting arms and pulling him close. 

"Dumb-ass." She mumbled into his chest. 

They spent the remainder of the early morning going over the events of the prior couple of weeks. Apparently, the incident with John and the masked men had been all over the local news. 

"I think it was probably a good thing you went away for a while. It was fucking nuts." She said. 

It had been a relief to finally tell MJ all about where he'd been. It was almost impossible to convey everything he'd experienced into words, yet MJ seemed to hang on to every word, her eyes wide. 

After he'd come to the end of his tale, MJ folded her arms, raising her eyebrows.

"So you've kidnapped a student?" She said plainly. 

"No!" He exclaimed with a laugh, "I prefer to call it leading him astray."

By the time they made it back over to Peter's apartment, Bobby was awake and sitting at the kitchen table with May. They appeared to in the midst of deep conversation over breakfast and when the pair of them entered, Bobby beamed at them through a mouth of cornflakes. 

Snorting, MJ moved confidently towards them and slid into an empty chair. Even after all this time, Peter was still amazed at the courage with which MJ navigated the world. 

"Morning." Peter nodded, grabbing a couple of glasses from the cabinet and passing one over to MJ. 

"Morning May." MJ grinned, before turning to look at Bobby with curious eyes. "You must be Bobby."

Bobby laughed uneasily, clearly buckling under the mercy of MJ's all-seeing eyes. 

"Yes. That's me. You must be MJ." 

Peter chuckled, smiling reassuringly at Bobby. 

Once May had left for work, the three of them went over their mission plan. Since Peter had known from his time with the X-Men that John has been frequenting an address in Brooklyn, hence, a stakeout was in order to work out exactly what was going on. Besides, Peter gathered it was probably best to keep Bobby a good distance away from John if they did see him, considering the reaction he'd had upon finding out John was in the city. 

Before she bid goodbye to them, MJ paused in the doorway. 

"I got invited to a party by some people from the Mutant Rights group. I wasn't gonna go but if you guys feel like it, it's on Saturday." She said, "I'll see you later, be careful." 

Peter and Bobby took the train into Brooklyn, dressed in ordinary clothes. The last thing they needed with the attention either of their uniforms garnered. Bobby peered around the train anxiously, shifting his weight.

"Never been on the subway before?", Peter asked. 

"I've never even been to New York before." Bobby shrugged. 

The building wasn't far from the Subway station, so it only took a few minutes or so to make their way to the rooftop they'd chosen to observe from. By now, the midday sun was high in the sky, beating down in powerful rays. 

Settling down on the hot concrete, Peter wiped his brow with a groan. 

Bobby glanced over at him and reached into his bag. Pulling out a bottle of water, it froze at his touch and he passed it over to Peter with a grin. 

"Thanks." He replied, "Isn't the heat bothering you." 

"Not at all." He shrugged, "Ever since the thing when my hand turned to ice I've just felt cold all the time. I'm not complaining though." 

"Dude, your powers are ridiculous." 

"I just need to get a cool costume and you'd be out of business." Bobby grinned. 

They settled into a comfortable silence, the seconds of watching over the street drifted into minutes. 

"You'd recognise him from this far away?" Peter had asked, as Bobby scoured the skyline. 

"I couldn't miss him. He's not the kind of person you forget." 

It was almost Two PM when Peter's phone buzzed, lighting up with a text alert from May. 

"Oh crap, I meant to ask." Peter said, "May wanted to know if your parents knew you were here. Just so they don't think I've kidnapped." 

Bobby bit his lip. 

"No, no they don't." He said, shaking his head. 

"Oh." Peter said, "Don't you think you should tell them. I bet they're all worried about you with everything going on with mutants." 

At Peter's words, Bobby straightened up, avoiding eye contact.

"My parents don't know I'm a mutant." He said quickly, staring out over the skyline, his knees drawn tight. 

Peter's gut twisted and he wiped his brow. How could he have been so naive to assume they'd known. Why did he always have to open his big mouth? 

"Shit, I'm sorry." He said, "I shouldn't have brought it up." 

Bobby glanced at him, shaking his head. 

"It's not your fault." Bobby shrugged, "When the whole Thanos thing happened, my mom and my dad and my brother, they all stayed. I didn’t, I blipped. And to know they spent five years waiting for me to come back... I didn't want to tell them. I couldn't do it to them." 

Bobby spoke casually, his tone barely faltering at his admission. 

“That isn’t easier for you though, surely?” It must be very hard on Bobby, lying every day to the people who were supposed to care for him the most in the world. Sure he’d lied to Aunt May about being Spider-Man, but he’d only done it to protect her and he’d never been afraid for a second that she’d reject him once she found out.

Bobby sighed deeply, before raising an eyebrow.

“It’s very easy to tell what my parents really think of mutants. I imagine it’s why the Professor lied to my parents in the first place, about Xavier’s being a prep school. That way I didn’t have to choose between the school and my family. I’m lucky really, to have had the choice.”

“Because you can pass as a non-mutant?”

“Right. And I get to go to the institute. It may be a high school, but it’s probably about the safest place for mutants on the planet.”

For a while they sat in silence, Peter chewing his lip thoughtfully. Bobby meanwhile stared with intent at the tiny snowflakes he was producing on the tips of his fingers.

“Can I ask you another question?”

Chucklingly, Bobby flashed him a half-smile.

“This is starting to remind me of when the Professor tried to force us to talk about it our feelings. But sure, go ahead.”

“What's the deal with you and Kitty?” He asked, squinting through the sunlight. 

Bobby groaned loudly. 

"Kitty I used to date." He grumbled. 

Peter's mouth dropped open, the timeline of events in his head finally falling into place. 

"Ahh." He hummed. 

"Yep." Bobby said plainly, "We were all in the same grade, me, Kitty, Rogue, John and some of the others, but I was the only one that disappeared. When I got back, they tried to make it feel like nothing had changed but they couldn’t help it. Don’t get me wrong, they’re still my best friends, they’re awesome. It’s just, they’re older now and whether I like it or not they’ve moved on with their lives, heck they’re teachers and I’m still waiting to graduate." 

"So...you still like her?" Peter probed. 

"No, no, God no." Bobby stammered, 'I promise no. It's just weird, having the person you used to date boss you around. Really weird." 

Bobby had flushed an impressive shade of scarlet, contrasting starkly with his snowy skin. 

"Noted. And what about John, he was your best friend?"

"Yeah." Bobby said plainly, "And then he left." 

"Why did he leave?" Peter asked. Bobby, however, had completely withdrawn from the conversation and had crawled forward, squinting down at the street below. 

"Holy shit." Bobby breathed, eyes wide. Bouncing to his feet, he made a start for the fire escape. "I think I saw him, Peter. I think he's down there." 

Peter moved quickly over to the edge of the rooftop, peering down onto the street. He quickly zoned in on who Bobby was referring to. He did look exactly like John as Peter remembered him. 

Looking back around for Bobby, Peter groaned. Bobby had now disappeared from the rooftop, his belongings completely disregarded. Cursing, Peter raced after him down the fire escape. So much for avoiding a dramatic reuinion. 


	8. Bobby

It wasn't until Bobby had reached the end of John's corridor, that Peter stopped him in his tracks. 

"Bobby, stop." He said, "Are you sure this is a good idea?"

Trying and failing to riggle out of Peter's firm grip, Bobby huffed. 

"How are you so strong?" He wined. 

Peter raised his eyebrows with a look of exasperation. 

"It's a long story. Radio-active spider. Not the time." 

"You can't just drop radio-active spider and move on!" Bobby gasped. 

"What are you gonna say, Bobby?" Peter whispered, glancing at the closed door. Bobby tried to hug his wrist away again, to no avail. 

"I...I'll figure something out." He supplied.

"You'll figure something out? We're standing outside the door." Peter exclaimed, "Like who am I?"

Bobby blinked back at him dumbly. 

"You're Peter?"

Peter groaned. 

"Christ, just tell him I go to the institute," Peter instructed and Bobby's mouth dropped into an o-shape. "Don't tell him I'm Spiderman." 

"Right, I've got you." Bobby stuttered, rather embarrassed. Was he really that slow?

Hovering his fist in front of the door, Bobby readied himself, then rapped his hand against the door. Breath catching in his throat, he didn't move an inch as they waited. 

Eventually, after a minute of coarse silence, the sound of muffled footsteps cut through the quiet. 

"If you're selling shit, I'm not interested." 

At the sound of that familiar voice, Bobby's gut twisted. Maybe this had been a mistake. Maybe he ought to just turn around and leave. That option, however, was quickly taken off the table, when Peter knocked again. 

"I said I'm not interested." John's voice sounded again, the door swinging open seconds later. 

Bobby could have sworn his stomach had dropped straight to the floor. Staring back at him with an expression Bobby couldn't place, John looked almost the same as the day he'd left. The hair was longer, perhaps a little darker, but besides that, Bobby could have sworn no time had passed at all. 

Bobby could feel Peter's eyes fixed upon him, gesturing him to say something, yet he couldn't find a single word. He just stood there. 

"Jesus Christ Bobby, what are you doing here?" John said, running a hand through his hair. His glare moved from Bobby and then to Peter, then back again to Bobby. "How did you find me?" 

"Hello." He managed. It felt as if his brain had short-circuited. 

John shook his head. 

"That's your answer?" He asked. "Who are you?" 

Looking now to Peter, John narrowed his eyes. 

Springing into action, Bobby gave Peter as reassuring a look he could manage. 

"This is Peter. He's from the institute." Bobby answered, gazing at John with wide eyes.

"Okay. Now, what are you doing here?" John asked. Why did he have to be so standoffish? Bobby didn't know what he'd expected. He just hadn't wanted this.

"Look, we want to help you. I know you're involved in something bad. Please, just hear us out." Bobby pleaded. 

With a groan, John stared back at Bobby with a look of disbelief. 

"Did the Professor send you?" He asked. 

"No, no!" Bobby insisted. "I actually kind of ran away. I mean, I'm in a lot of trouble." 

John cocked his head.

"That sounds fake." He said,

"It's not." Peter supplied.

"Yeah, everything's kind of gone to shit. I can tell you about it if you let us in?" 

Eventually relenting with a loathsome groan, John ushered them in, but not before checking the corridor behind them. 

"It's just the two of us, I promise," Peter stressed as the pair shuffled into the small apartment. It was far more substantial than Bobby had imagined. It was all he'd been able to think about; finding John in some destitute state. 

"Coming from a stranger who just showed up at my door two minutes ago, that doesn't mean shit," John replied bluntly, slamming the door behind them. 

"Do you live here?" Bobby asked carefully, eyeing John timidly. 

John nodded.

"Yeah, it's my uncle's place. He's out of town." 

"Good" Bobby sighed, "I was worried you'd be someplace horrible."

John squinted at Bobby. 

"Sure you were." He shrugged. Maybe Bobby had glazed over the image of John he had in his head with a rosy tint, for he'd forgotten how frustrating he could be. 

"Damn it, John, can you stop being an ass for five minutes?" He groaned, "You know everyone at the institute thinks you're involved with illegal stuff?" 

"We know you were in that alleyway with Spider-Man." Peter supplied, "They think you're involved with the people who attacked him." 

John's eyes widened and he rolled his eyes.

"Typical." He snapped, "I'm not involved with them. I've been trying to stop them." 

Bobby smiled weakly. It was the answer he'd wanted so badly. John paced away from them, hands on his hips. His breathing was heavy and Bobby was vaguely aware of the temperature in the apartment rising. Looking to Bobby, then to Peter, John snorted. 

"Are you kidding me, Bobby?" He said, mildly amused.

"What?" Bobby said blankly. 

"You come here with the kid from the news that everyone thinks is Spider-Man and you expect me to believe he's Peter from the institute." He said, almost smiling. 

"He's not Spider-Man," Bobby said quickly. 

"I'm not." Peter seconded.

"Fine then what's your mutation?" He challenged. 

"It's...umm...I can stick to walls." Peter stuttered. Bobby grimaced. 

"So like Spider-Man?" 

"No." Peter stammered, before relenting with a frustrated groan, "Fine, yes okay, but that's not important. Bobby's right, I saw you in the alleyway. What were you doing there?" 

John bit his lip, his shoulders hunch. It had always been impossible for Bobby to get anything from John. He was impossibly private. 

"Why should I tell you?" John challenged. 

"Because if you don't, next time it'll be Scott knocking at your door. We both know you don't want that." Bobby said, folding his arms. There were no two people on this earth who got on worse than John and Scott Summers. 

"Fine," John grunted, "There's this mutant underground thing in the city. I found out at one of their meetings that mutants have been going missing all over the city, only to turn up again a couple of days later. Like dozens, but the cops don't care. They're claiming they're just runaways." 

"But you don't think they are," Bobby said. John nodded. 

"I know they're not." He said firmly. Moving over to a backpack leaning against the bed, he leaned over and retrieved something. Holding out his palm, he revealed a small silver disk. "Every time they turn up, they have one of these things stuck to them. We think they take your powers away." 

"You're right." Peter said, "When I woke up I had one of those things stuck to me. It took all of my abilities away, it was insane." 

Bobby furrowed his brow. 

"But what's the point in kidnapping mutants only for them to turn up a few days later?" He asked.

"I'm not sure." John said, "Experiments...God knows." 

"But you found them right? The group taking mutants? That's who was chasing you?" Peter asked. 

"No, they found me." He admitted, "I got jumped out of nowhere, but I managed to getaway. That's when I ran into you." 

"How did they find you?" Bobby asked.

"God knows." John shrugged. "Maybe they're targeting the mutant underground. Or maybe I got too close I don't know." 

Bobby swallowed. 

"John you have to tell the Professor about this. If anyone can help you it's him." Bobby instructed.

John scoffed. 

"No way. I left the institute for a good reason. Not every problem needs the X-Men." 

Bobby frowned. 

"John." He moaned, "Please just think about it. You can't do this alone." 

"I'm not alone." He said, decisively, "I have the underground. I've moved on Bobby. You know this." 

"No, I know don't actually." Bobby snapped back sourly, that impossible cold once again spreading through his chest. "I don't know what the hell you've been doing for the last few years." 

John stared back at him, clearly taken aback. Even through all those years of relentless bickering, they had seldom properly argued. 

"Peter, can you give us a minute?" John asked. His tone was perfectly still. He was looking calmly from John then to Bobby as if measuring up how likely either one of them were to explode. Finally, he nodded, leaving the pair of them to glare at one another. 

"What are you really here for Bobby?" John asked. 

Bobby narrowed his eyes. 

"I already told you," Bobby said. 

Scoffing, John shook his head. 

"Nothing's changed has it." He said dryly. "Still wrapped up in the same delusion. Still lying to everyone and yourself." 

"Shut up," Bobby growled, letting the cold bleed of him. 

"Oh save the temper tantrum. I'm not interested." John dismissed. "I can tell you're not happy. I can tell you're still lying to everyone. What's the point, Bobby?" 

"Stop," Bobby said coldly, "You don't know anything. How could you possibly know what things have been like?" 

"Because I know you." John breathed, staring down the floor. Eventually, he lifted his head, folding his arms tightly. "Don't be alone Bobby." 

"I'm-", Bobby began, however, he failed to reach the end of his sentence. He stared back at John. It wasn't any use. A tiny part of him willed himself to talk. To let everything that he'd been on his chest for the last few years. Yet even staring John down after all that had happened, he couldn't do it. Maybe he was a coward.

"Look, I should go." Bobby nodded, moving towards the door. "If you need help, call me." 

John merely nodded, his face betraying his disappointment. 

\-- 

As he and Peter sat on the train a few minutes later, Bobby's gut churned. Things couldn't possibly have gone worse. 

Standing in front of John had felt so impossibly raw. Things could have been so different if he hadn't let John walk away.

_"Stop it. Stop it, Bobby. Can't you see you're fucking with my head?" John growled, ripping his wrist from Bobby's grip so fast that Bobby's fingertips were left tingling. "I never asked you to come out to anyone. Never. But do you really think I'm gonna sit around waiting for you whilst you move on to another girlfriend?"_

_"Stop it," Bobby said quietly, almost a whimper._

_"Why? I'm right." John bit back. "I never wanted this. I never bought into Xavier's bullshit. You were the only reason I stayed and I still wasn't enough."_

_"You were. You are." Bobby insisted._

_John sighed deeply._

_"I'm not happy Bobby. I haven't been happy in a long time. Just let me go."_


End file.
